


The Unexpected Guest

by NuMo



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: AU, Bering & Wells the non-denominational Christmas movie remix, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21957277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: Oh, don't we all love Christmas movies? And don't we all wish there was one with a female couple - our female couple?Happy holidays to anyone who's celebrating, and all the best for everyone who's not. Have a great end of the year and enjoy!
Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells
Comments: 68
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m so sorry we’re late!” Claudia exclaimed as she rushed in to hug Myka. 

“You’re still a day early.” Myka patted Claudia’s back reassuringly. “And you know we wouldn’t start the party without you.”

“I know but I was so nervous we wouldn’t get here!” Claudia said. 

“The weather isn’t all that bad, Claud.” Joshua sighed the long-suffering sigh of the big brother, then nudged his sister. “Move it, I want a hug, too.”

“Hey Josh,” Myka greeted him, hugging him around the backpack he was holding in front of him. 

“Dude,” Claudia told Joshua in withering tones, “how much sun have _you_ seen during the past few days? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Only rain, or snow, or both. Disgusting, filthy, and dangerous. They closed the pass just after we went through! Five minutes later and we might have been stranded on the other side without you guys. No.” Claudia scowled. “We need to wake up the sun. The world needs us to.” The last word was accompanied by an imperious gesture towards the, indeed, gray skies.

Myka ignored that last bit and ushered the two Donovans into the back door, taking Joshua’s backpack when she saw that he was carrying another one on his back. “They closed the pass?”

“Yup,” Josh nodded, “boards all lit up along the road. Pass closed from 3pm December 24th. Until further notice.” He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the second-to-last free hook in the mudroom. 

“I imagine they’re being extra careful after last spring,” Claudia added, kicking off her boots and setting them underneath the last free hook. 

Myka smiled a small, happy smile at the two now occupied hooks: everyone was there. Then she nodded. “Good to know about the pass,” she said. “I mean, everyone’s here and safe and not going anywhere until the New Year, but we might need to get some shopping in, just in case.”

“Now you sound just like your mother,” Joshua grinned. 

Myka took a friendly swing at him with the hand not holding his backpack, then held that out to him. “I hope you’re bringing gifts, Donovan,” she told him with a little toss of her chin. “Gotta make up for those snark attacks.”

“Do I smell Lattimer Stew?” Claudia asked, winding around the two of them towards the kitchen door. “I’m famished.”

“You just had a burger and fries on the other side of the pass!” Joshua called after her. 

She hollered back, “I’m a genius – my brain needs fooooood!” And through the door she went. Myka could hear the shouts of welcome from Jane, Jean and Abigail, cut short by the door swinging shut again.

“She is,” Joshua said with an indulgent grin, “but don’t tell her I said that.”

Myka snorted. “She’s got you wrapped around her little finger anyway, Donovan; she doesn’t need me to tell her.”

Joshua sighed, and his grin turned rueful. “I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, it’s good to see you, Myka. Thanks, as always, for putting us up.”

Myka smiled and took his arm to lead him towards the kitchen door. “As always, you’re very welcome.”

-_-_-

That evening, the table was finally complete – full except for the place set for the unexpected guest. Both Joshua and Claudia apologized profusely to everyone for their flight having been delayed, and everyone was just as adamantly telling them that it was alright. Myka leaned back, happy to have every one of her loved ones close.

Her mother was chatting with Jane Lattimer and Jane’s daughter Jeannie, hands dancing as they signed – Myka looked closer, then grinned – something about Jeannie’s latest fling, apparently. Next to them, Amanda Martin was cleaning the face of her youngest child, Dean, who’d been a bit too enthusiastic about the long green beans in the stew. A mixed pleasure, Myka supposed – good on him for eating his veggies, but he had made a downright mess of himself. Between his chair and the next, Trailer the dog, a border collie mix, was watching the clean-up closely in case anything came his way – or maybe he was waiting to be asked to participate. Next to the dog, Dean’s twin siblings Sam and Cadie were fighting with two leftover breadsticks, encouraged (whenever Amanda wasn’t looking) by Pete Lattimer, Jane’s son and Jeannie’s younger brother – and Myka’s very best friend. On his other side, Tracy and Kevin Roebuck, Myka’s sister and her husband, were fussing over their ten-months-old daughter Emily, who’d been dubbed ‘Bambi’ by Pete and ‘Baby Buck’ by Claudia – Myka was sure she’d be called upon to referee at some point, and equally sure she didn’t want to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

At the foot end of the table, Artie Nielsen was arguing with his father Isadore (or Izzy) whenever he wasn’t – clumsily – flirting with Vanessa Calder, two states of affairs that seemed to be set to go on forever. Coming back up the table, Jack and Rebecca St. Clair were, as always, trying to save what they could – Izzy’s patience, Artie’s face, Vanessa’s composure. Next to them, Brenda Cosay and Kelly Hernandez were laughing at something Hugo Miller had said, and even Irene Frederic was cracking a rare smile. Her presence didn’t seem to stop her niece Leena from enjoying the antics of Abigail Cho and Liam Napier, who were one-upping each other with outrageous tales from the hotel kitchen while Steve Jinks, Liam’s partner, listened on their other side. Further up, both Douglas Fargo and Todd Ossietzky were trying and failing – as far as Myka could discern – to convince Claudia, who was seated between them and Liam, to even notice them, while Claudia, on her part, was focused entirely on catching Steve’s eye. Joshua smiled as he saw Myka looking at them, and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. She grinned back and raised her glass in a mock little toast. 

“This is the last year,” he leaned over the table’s corner to tell her. “I swear to any available supernatural being in the universe.” He looked over to where a sharp clonk signaled that Todd’s chair had almost overturned and had been righted just in time. “I’m not cut out to be a babysitter, much less these people’s babysitter.”

“Would you rather switch with Pete?” Myka replied. 

Joshua gave a mock shudder. “Oh hell no,” he said. “I mean don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly, cottoning on to the fact that Amanda was giving him A Look, “they’re great kids and all, but there are many people much better suited to that than me here tonight.”

“Nice save,” Amanda told him with an approving nod, then gave Dean’s chin one last wipe and turned more fully to Myka’s and Joshua’s corner of the table. “Josh, have you heard the latest about MacPherson’s yet?”

“What’s he come up with now?”

“Hired a consultant from out of town to help save his hotel.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “Not like we all don’t know what he’s doing wrong,” she added with a sigh.

Myka couldn’t help but agree. “He pays people too little,” she says, “it’s unsustainable. I mean it’s not like we have a fresh influx of college students you can hire for cheap each year, like in Denver or Colorado Springs, even.”

“Having a job on the side isn’t that bad, though,” Joshua gave back, eyebrows drawn together questioningly.

“No, of course not,” Myka agreed – Claudia and Josh both had been working in the Bering’s during their last years of high school. “But he’s trying to run his hotel paying barely more than what you guys earned even to skilled workers.”

“Oof, yeah,” Josh said, eyes wide as he leaned back, “that’s not gonna work.”

Jane cut in now, having caught some of their conversation. “That’s why Artie left,” she said, “when it got to that point, he just couldn’t support MacPherson anymore, and since he couldn’t change James’ mind, he quit.”

“Not gonna complain about that one,” Myka said with a half-smile, “it got me a top-notch accountant. Sorry, mom, I know you did your best with the books after dad died, but-”

“But I’m a cook, not an accountant,” Jean replied, signing as she spoke so that Jeannie would understand, too. “You can say it. To be honest, I’m glad that he’s here to do the accounting. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, even after Abigail started as sous-chef. It’s just so different!”

“I know, mom, I know. It’s not like I was any better at it,” Myka laughed, signing too. “Sometimes you just gotta own up to what you’re not good at, and hire someone to do it instead. Like flower arrangements,” she said, pointing at Amanda with a smile. “I mean will you look at these!”

“Thank you, thank you,” Amanda replied. “Happy to contribute, as you know.”

Myka’s smile grew. This was part of the magic of their gathering: everyone contributed what they could, and so the event was no big financial strain for any one person – or the Bering’s – at the end of the year, but a team effort that valued financial contributions just as much as volunteering in the kitchen. 

“Myka, I know I’ve said this before,” Jane said through her musings, also signing as she spoke – on cue, Jeannie laughed and rolled her eyes, because she sure knew, too, that Jane would sometimes repeat herself. Some habits are hard to break, even for elementary school teachers. “But you’ve done such a great job with the place. Starting with the rename, of course. Really, ‘Bering and Sons’ – sorry, Jean, but I have _no_ idea what Warren was thinking.”

“He wanted the place to have a family touch,” Jean said, sounding somewhat defensive. 

Myka, who knew that this was a sore topic, quickly tried to head it off. “And it wasn’t as if he left me a dump,” she said, “no matter what Tracy called it when she moved to Colorado Springs. He did upgrade a lot before he died, when the interest rates were low after nine-eleven. Sure, it was a gamble, but it paid off.”

“That,” Josh said, pointing with his fork, “is true. I read a Yelp review only yesterday where someone said that they used to think the Bering’s was drafty and had fuses that blew when you only looked at the outlet with a plug in your hand, _but_ -” he emphasized the last word as both Bering women took breath to defend their home and business, “they said that nowadays this was no longer the case, everything was excellent, and, and I quote, ‘they even have free Wi-Fi!’”

“Okay, okay,” Myka said, feeling slightly mollified. The Wi-Fi had been Douglas’ idea – the Bering’s had kept him on not just as the all-around tech guy; he also ran service and housekeeping. “That’s better.”

“Better?” Josh asked, eyebrows high. “The Bering’s has a rating of four point seven out of five; that is _outstanding_.”

“I know, I know, and Douglas keeps telling me that one of these days people will come because of that alone,” Myka huffed. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Ninety percent of our guests are returners or referrals.”

“They like the family touch,” Jean added, shooting a reproachful look at Jane, who patted her hand mollifyingly. 

“And you provide that touch, you and Myka,” Jane said. “And so people come here even though you’re a step up, price-wise, from MacPherson’s. Who wants cookie cutter impersonality when they can have this?” She gestured around the dining room. Then she turned to Myka again. “I know this wasn’t what you’d imagined your life to be, and I don’t know if it’s what you _want_ to do, but you’re doing a good job.”

Warren Bering, despite all his shortcomings as a father, had been a deft enough businessman to leave a well-set-up hotel to his daughters when he’d died seven years ago. Tracy, who’d high-tailed it out of town the moment she’d graduated high school a few years before that, had staunchly declined to have anything to do with the place, leaving Myka to, as always, grit her teeth, stop what she was doing, and return home to hold up the family business. Not that she’d been doing something very exciting, but it had been her choice to work in a bookstore after getting her degree; Jane was right about that. And it had been her choice to stay in Boulder rather than return to a town of barely 5000 inhabitants that was known, outside its city limits, to maybe as many people in the whole of the United States.

But the hotel had called out to her. She’d always loved the quirky old building, its almost-a-century-old body, its well-meaning add-ons, its little nooks and crannies. And the books, when she’d looked at them, hadn’t looked too bad. The hotel had avoided the worst of the tourism slump of the late aughts – but MacPherson’s hadn’t. And now it seemed that James MacPherson was getting desperate. Myka mentally rolled her eyes. Let him pay consultants’ fees; let him learn it the hard way. It’d be sad to see the MacPherson’s go out of business, not so much for the tradition of rivalry, but much more so for the people working there still. The town’s tourism might not be large enough to sustain both the Bering’s and the MacPherson’s anymore, but people needed jobs, and if MacPherson’s went under, at least a dozen people would lose theirs, not to mention suppliers and contractors. 

Taking a deep breath, Myka shook those thoughts out of her head. As she looked around the table, she felt her heart swell. 

This gathering had started the Christmas after her father had died. Warren Bering, who in some ways had been as quirky as the hotel he’d owned, had never accepted guests between December 23 and 27. He’d always declared Christmas ‘family time’, even though his contribution had been hiding himself away in his office to read as many books as he’d wanted. And in this town of weird winter traditions and guests who wanted it exactly like that, this quirk had flown. 

And Myka hadn’t been able to bring herself to change it.

The place had been empty the days before that Christmas; echoing and sad and grieving. But then the Lattimers had come over, and with Pete always came Amanda, even though they weren’t married anymore, and her kids, even though Pete wasn’t their biological father. Jane Lattimer and Artie had been at school together, and she knew that he and his father had no one else to spend the end of the year with, so the year after, she’d asked Jean and Myka if Artie and Izzy could come, too, and Trailer, their dog. Their addition prompted the gathering to take on a non-religious (or, as Izzy called it, trans-religious) flair. It wasn’t a religious gathering of any denomination, but not really an atheist one either – it had something of everything. It was a mid-winter get-together to celebrate families both inherited and found, to seek and enjoy light and warmth and good food, to stick together against the cold and the dark, against loss and grief, and to witness the turning of the year. 

They’d moved the gathering forward a little to incorporate the winter solstice, to honor that particular turning point. It’d been Pete’s idea to set off fireworks to ‘wake up the sun’, and since the Bering’s was set a good way out of town, right close to the slopes, it didn’t bother the town council all that much; plausible deniability went a long way. So these days, while being open throughout the rest of the skiing season and most of hiking season, Bering’s was closed to paying guests from December 20 to 27, but overflowed with family and friends. It was the only time that Tracy willingly came back to visit; other than this time of year, it was usually Jean who drove to Colorado Springs to see her daughter, son-in-law and, now, her grandchild. Sometimes guests would bring in other guests if they happened to be in town during that time – part of the reason behind the whole thing was that nobody should feel lonely during the dark days; nobody should feel left out. 

And so Brenda, the town’s last remaining post office worker, Kelly, its veterinarian, and Vanessa, its general practitioner, had joined because none of them had family in town, and the next year Brenda had brought along Mrs. Frederic, the town’s school superintendent, and her niece Leena, while Vanessa had invited her dear friend Hugo Miller, who after the death of his wife had had no one to take care of him, and his neighbors the St. Clairs, who had ‘lost’, like many other families, their grown-up children to the siren call of Colorado Springs or Denver or any other place that wasn’t a ‘dump’, or ‘the sticks’, as Claudia usually called it. 

Claudia herself and her brother Joshua had gained some recognition in town, first, unfortunately, for being the sole survivors of a car crash that killed their parents and older sister, but then (and much more welcome) for being academic prodigies. They’d gone on to study not just in Denver, but at the MIT and in Europe, had found jobs at CERN in Geneva – and yet came home every year. Because when that fatal accident had happened, Claudia had worked at Bering’s, and had found a friend in Myka who helped hold her together. And where Claudia went, Joshua went, always. As did Todd, Claudia’s classmate – although he had, after graduating high school, stayed with the Bering’s just like Douglas Fargo had. When Eric Kluger, the hotel’s handyman and maintenance guy, had retired, Todd had jumped at the chance to ‘make tinkering his day job’ as he’d called it. He, too, was an orphan; he’d been living with his grandmother until last year, when she’d moved to a senior citizen’s home in Boulder, and lived full-time on the premises now, just like Myka and her mother. In fact, he’d taken over Tracy’s old room, which she constantly teased him over.

Abigail, for her part, still had parents – but they’d fallen out over Abigail’s choice of career. Then the Chos had moved to San Francisco to support Abigail’s brother Edmund and his family while Edmund made his way up the ranks of a large software company, and Abigail had stayed behind – leaving Myka wondering and hoping that working at the Bering’s was enjoyable enough for the young woman to stay on. Liam, Abigail’s class mate, had been disowned by his parents for being gay, and they’d bonded over their family troubles as Liam worked in the Bering’s kitchen to pay his way through the rest of high school. He’d met and fallen in love with Steve Jinks at FLETC in Charleston, where they’d both trained to be ATF agents. And while Steve still was on speaking terms with his family, he and Liam were happy to come to Colorado every other year, and close their eyes to any fireworks antics that might not exactly be legal under state or county law.

Myka loved all of them, and these seven days of having them all close warmed her heart. 

The place set for the unexpected guest had been a suggestion of Izzy’s, the first year he’d taken part. Everyone had loved the idea, declaring it perfect for the spirit of their gathering. It had never yet been claimed; if more people arrived than even Myka’s meticulous list-keeping had kept track of, still one more place than necessary would be set. The empty spot – this year between Hugo and Vanessa – served as a reminder that there was always a chance that an unexpected guest might turn up; that you never knew what the dark days would bring, and that this gathering was a refuge to any who found themselves alone, or stranded, or in need. No unexpected guest would ever be turned away; there was a spot reserved for them already. 

Therefore, when the bell rang that night, there was a brief moment in which everyone at the table looked at everyone else, brief conversations of ‘I don’t know anyone else who’s said they were coming, do you?’ were exchanged, and then everyone’s eyes landed on Myka and Jean. Jean chuckled briefly, and nudged Myka with her elbow. “You’re the boss, sweetheart,” she stage-whispered, to general amusement. Myka gave a brief snort, but got up anyway and went to the front door. The ‘no vacancy’ sign was lit, both at the turn-off from the street and in the courtyard. A note was taped up on the main door, even giving directions to MacPherson’s as well as the other hotel’s phone number. The Bering’s website was clear about the hotel being closed for business until the new year. 

But someone had rung the bell despite all of that, and since the gathering was no secret in town, it was safe to assume that this someone was in need, or stranded, or alone. 

As Myka approached the door through the dark lobby, she could see, outlined against the glass in the light from the courtyard, a slender figure, bundled up against the cold and with a small suitcase next to them – German-made, one of the most expensive ones on the market; Myka knew the brand though she didn’t see it all that often. She frowned. A tourist after all?

She turned on the lights closest to the door. While the person outside squinted against the sudden brightness and raised a gloved hand to shield their eyes, Myka unlocked the door and opened it.

“Hey, can I help you?”

The other person’s hand dropped, and Myka had to take care that her chin didn’t follow: the woman standing there was gorgeous. Dark, slanted eyes over sharp cheekbones, snowflakes clinging to hair so dark it looked black in the dim light, lips drawn into an apologetic, but still captivating smile. 

“I am ever so sorry,” the woman said, and Myka gave another small start – British. Not something you heard very often in this town. “I find myself in need of accommodation, and, uh…”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Myka said, and she was, “but we’re not open for business right now.” She pointed to the notice. “I’m sure MacPherson’s-”

The woman cleared her throat delicately and dropped her gaze. “I’m afraid James MacPherson and I had… somewhat of a falling-out. I’m not exactly welcome there right now,” she said, biting the inside of her lip. 

Myka blinked. Then it dawned on her. “You’re the consultant he hired.”

“Indeed,” the other woman nodded with a little grimace. “And I promise this is not a setup to spy on the competition. My contract with James MacPherson is finished as of tonight; I was supposed to leave for Colorado Springs and head back to London, but the pass-” 

“The pass was closed this afternoon,” Myka completed her sentence, nodding. Now she found herself sucking in her lip, going through the options that this woman had – the pass was the only road out towards larger places, the Bering’s the only hotel aside from MacPherson’s, and if the latter was no longer an option-

An unexpected guest. Stranded, for sure, and in need – the woman had said so herself.

“Well, I guess you better come in, then,” Myka said, pushing the door wide to let the woman through. “Welcome to the Bering’s.”

“Thank you ever so much-” the woman left the sentence hanging. 

“Myka Bering,” Myka said obligingly.

“The proprietress herself.” 

There was a small smile playing around the woman’s lips. It was fascinating. Then Myka realized that the woman was looking at her expectantly, hand outstretched. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, shaking herself out of it, “come again?”

“Helena Wells,” the woman said, and that smile was unmistakable now. “Pleased to meet you.”

Myka shook the offered hand with burning cheeks.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Myka walked into the staff kitchen to find her mother busy making coffee. 

“Morning, mom,” she yawned, fishing a mug from the cupboard and setting it next to the one that was waiting for Jean’s coffee. Then she leaned in to hug her mother.

“Morning, sweetheart,” Jean replied, turning from her task to kiss Myka’s cheek. “Had a good night?”

Myka sighed happily. “Yeah. Now that Claudia and Joshua are here, and the pantry is full…”

Jean laughed. “You worry too much, Myka. I swear – and Abigail supports me in this – that it wasn’t necessary to go out for more groceries, even if the pass is closed.” She closed the coffee filter holder and turned on the coffee machine. “Even if we have one more guest than planned.”

Myka harrumphed but didn’t reply. Her mother was very probably right, especially if Abigail agreed. It was their job to know how much food was needed, after all. “Any news yet on how long the pass will be closed?”

“You’re the one with the smartphone and the Twitter, dear,” Jean said dryly. “You tell me.”

“Touché,” Myka murmured, and then shrugged. “My phone’s still upstairs. I guess we’ll know when we’ll know.”

“I’m sure Ms. Wells will have the latest on it when she comes down,” Jean nodded. 

Myka noted a particular gleam in her mother’s eye. James MacPherson and Jean Bering had never seen eye-to-eye. “You’re going to leave her alone, mom,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right to try and get stuff out of her about the MacPherson.”

Jean gave a little toss of her head. “Oh, not that I was thinking about that,” she replied. 

Myka snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“It would be… what do the British say? ‘Bad form’, I believe.”

“You’re quite right,” came an accented voice from the doorway. “Excuse me,” it went on, “I heard your voices; figured I’d find someone if I followed them. I don’t want to intrude.” 

Jean raised her eyebrows at Myka, then they both turned. “Good morning! You’re an early riser, then?” Jean asked, motioning for Wells to come in.

Wells nodded and came closer. Her eyes were slightly hooded with sleep still, Myka noticed, and focused on the coffee machine. As if it heard a silent plea coming from the Englishwoman, the machine gave the puttering sound that signaled the coffee was done. Myka wordlessly grabbed another mug and filled all three of them, reaching the first out towards Wells. 

The woman inhaled deeply, cupping both her hands around the mug. “Thank you,” she murmured. 

“You haven’t had any yet,” Myka pointed out. 

“Thank you for just the promise of coffee, then,” Wells said with a small smile. “And for not prying into my business relations with your competitor.”

“I didn’t promise that,” Jean pointed out. 

Myka nudged her ribs, taking care not to spill any coffee. “Don’t mind her,” she told Wells. “Milk? Sugar?” Tea? She bit her lips not to say the word, but somehow Wells seemed to have heard it nevertheless.

“I do prefer coffee in the morning,” Wells said, “and I take it black, thank you.”

The door opened again, and Liam came in, followed by Douglas. “Breakfast crew at your service, ma’am,” Liam yawned. Then he spotted Wells, and drew himself up a little. “Good morning, Ms. Wells,” he said. Douglas gave a start, then echoed him. 

“Grab a coffee, boys,” Jean said, “and let’s head to the kitchen.”

When they had gone, Myka turned to the Englishwoman. “Any news on the pass yet?” she asked, then realized how that must have sounded. “Sorry, that came out weird. It’s not that I can’t wait to get rid of you,” she added quickly, “don’t get me wrong. I’m just empathizing with your situation. I’m sure you have plans for the holidays and all.”

Wells shrugged. “None in particular, to be honest,” she said. “However, I must admit I hadn’t counted on spending them here. All I was able to find out was that the pass is going to be closed until at least after Boxing Day – the twenty-sixth,” she added quickly.

“I know,” Myka said with a small chuckle, “but thanks.” British crime novels were a staple of her reading list; of course she knew what the twenty-sixth of December was called in the United Kingdom.

Wells raised her eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t comment. “Potentially longer,” she added. “Roads are closed all across this part of the mountains.”

“So even if the road gets cleared from our end,” Myka nodded her understanding, “it might not mean you’ll get through to an airport.”

Wells nodded as well. “And all helicopter services in the area are either grounded or in use.”

Myka’s eyes went wide. “You’d airlift out of here?” she said before she could stop herself. 

Wells drew herself up slightly. “I didn’t mean to sound disparaging, Ms. Bering,” she said. “Please don’t take this as a comment on this town or its offers.”

“No, I-” Myka sputtered, and tried to save herself by taking a sip of coffee. “I mean…”

“I meant what I said earlier,” Wells went on smoothly. “I do not want to intrude any longer than necessary. As welcoming as you were and are, this is clearly a family gathering and I do not belong.”

Was there a hint of defensiveness in the woman’s voice? A spark of longing in her eyes?

Myka shook her head, both in reply to Wells’ words and to rid her thoughts of any such notions. “You’re fine,” she said, “don’t worry. I did mention the empty place at the table, didn’t I?”

At this, Wells smiled – but there was still a smidgeon of sadness in among the polite expression, Myka was sure of it. “You did,” Wells said, “as did Mr. Weisfelt and Mr. Fargo.”

Myka suppressed a groan. If Douglas had any fault, it was hitting on people he shouldn’t be hitting on. Myka had needed to put the fear of litigation in him regarding making advances on female guests, but it seemed that under the circumstances he hadn’t counted Ms. Wells as being off limits. “I’m sorry,” she said. 

“Not at all,” Wells replied in a noncommittal voice and with a wave of her mug-free hand. 

Myka gritted her teeth and resolved to speak to Douglas as soon as she could grab hold of him. 

“In the meantime,” Wells began, draining her coffee and turning this way and that until she spotted the sink behind Myka, “I’ll call my office to let them know about my… situation. Excuse me.” 

Myka took a step aside to allow Wells access to the sink – and to her astonishment, Wells began to wash out her empty coffee mug. “You don’t need to-” she protested, grabbing the mug from Wells’ hands and grabbing a towel with the other, if only to hide her surprise.

“You told me yesterday that I wasn’t to consider myself a paying guest,” Wells gave back, holding her wet hands above the sink as she waited for Myka to be finished with the towel. “Cleaning up after myself is the least I can do. And I know perfectly well how to clean dishes, even if airlifting out of here is an option open to me, which is not a confirmation of whether or not I have entertained plans along those lines.” Her delivery was self-deprecating rather than biting, and included another one of those small, captivating smiles.

“Of course,” Myka said weakly, relinquishing the towel. She cleaned her throat. “Um, breakfast is gonna be ready in ten minutes or so. Pretty much an open buffet affair until ten, anytime you want to.”

“Thank you.” With that, Wells turned and left. It was only then that Myka realized that her words had been a dismissal, or close enough to make no difference.

That was the last Myka saw of the woman until the late afternoon. The day was spent in a flurry of preparation, as usual for the twenty-first. The sky had finally stopped spitting snow or rain or sleet, even though it was still gray. The kitchen brigade had been enlarged by half a dozen volunteers to prepare the day’s – and especially the night’s – food; Claudia, Joshua and Todd were setting up the fireworks display; Pete and a handful of others were busy hauling a ridiculous amount of wood to the grate next to the fireplace; and Amanda, Tracy, Jane and the two older kids were weaving around them to decorate the yard and the house. In the sitting room, Hugo Miller was tirelessly reading classics to Dean while Trailer laid at their feet, and Myka, who’d volunteered to babysit Emily, sat close enough to listen in and, quite frankly, doze a little every now and then as the flames in the fireplace crackled merrily around the Yule log.

A gust of fresh air and children’s voices announced the official end to the decorations process, and Myka perked up – Tracy would be headed her way soon, and she didn’t want to be accused of sleeping on the job. Sure enough, there was her sister already walking towards the sofas. Hugo stopped his reading as Trailer rushed to welcome the older kids.

“You’re good with babies,” Tracy said as she sat down next to Myka. “I haven’t heard so much as a peep from her.”

“Don’t start,” Myka said, holding Emily out to her. 

“Let me guess,” Tracy laughed. She picked up her daughter and settled her in the crook of her arm, and continued, “You’ve been fielding questions and comments on when you’ll finally start procreating all afternoon.”

“Yup,” Myka said with a roll of her eyes. “I mean at least everyone understands by now that me and Pete are not going to happen, but still. ‘Find yourself a nice guy’,” she intoned, imitating an old person’s voice, “or even girl, would you believe it?”

“Wait, what?” Tracy asked, stopping in the task of unbuttoning her shirt.

Myka laughed. “Rebecca. With a look, no, capital letters A Look, at Jack.”

“Huh.” Tracy weighed her head. “Well, what do you know,” she said finally. “Good on Rebecca.”

Myka nodded. “And before you start prying, and because I know you want to know – no, I haven’t found anyone yet, guy or girl.” She looked around herself at the hubbub. “And frankly, I’m okay with that.”

“Yeah, you always have other plans, sis,” Tracy sighed. “Get through college with straight As, get a job, get settled – take care of the hotel… life’s passing you by, Myka.”

“No,” Myka said firmly, “it is not. I am living life; it just doesn’t include a romantic partner. I like what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, Trace.”

Tracy held up an appeasing hand. “I know, I know. Sorry. I know. As long as you’re good, I’m good. Ouch – Emily! Calm down, kiddo.” She winced again, looking down at her daughter. “I wonder if her teeth are coming in.”

“Have fun with that,” Myka said dryly. “Hey, you good? I’m gonna go look for Claudia; I haven’t really spoken with her since they got here.”

Tracy shooed her away with a nod, and Myka set out to find Claudia. She found her outside in the yard, happily gazing at the finished fireworks battery as daylight waned.

“Man, I can’t wait,” Claudia said, almost hopping on the spot with excitement. 

“I know, Claud,” Myka said, grinning widely. She knew how much Claudia enjoyed this part. “Good thing it’s dried up.”

“Yeah, last year was awful.”

“I’m sure this year will be amazing,” Myka said.

“Oh, hey, by the way,” Claudia began, “that Wells woman? Seriously smart. She overheard Josh and me talking a bit yesterday, and you know what she did?” Myka had barely time to open her mouth when Claudia already went on, “Joined in! Like, she understands about bosons and gluons!”

Myka crossed her arms, trying to look displeased rather than amused. “Hey, I also know what those are.”

“I know, I know,” Claudia said quickly, “but _you_ have the benefit of being friends with particle physicists.”

“Well, maybe she is too?”

“Nope,” Claudia said. “I asked. She just said she was interested in science, which, you know, everyone says that – or they should, anyway – and it’s not like you can ‘know science’ these days anyway, like, not everything in all of the fields like a polymath back in Renaissance Italy or something. But what she knew was pretty solid.”

“I guess sometimes people surprise you,” Myka said with a smile. 

“I guess,” Claudia shrugged. “I mean, consultants.” She rolled her eyes. “But she seems kinda okay. I’m holding out judgement until she tells a story tonight, though.”

“She might not,” Myka said. “She hasn’t been around all day. Doesn’t want to intrude, she said.”

“Well, tell her she’s welcome to intrude, then,” Claudia said in a ‘this really should be obvious’ voice. “Dibs for sitting next to her at dinner. And at the fire pit.”

Myka laughed. “You can tell her too, you know.”

“Hey, you’re the host around here,” Claudia said quickly, hands upraised. “I’m not touching that. Your duty, not mine.”

“You know,” Myka gave back with her head tilted and her eyes narrowed, “I was really glad when you told me you’d learned to say no to stuff. I’m beginning to reevaluate that.”

Claudia stuck out her tongue at her. 

As Myka walked back to the house, her eyes wandered upwards to where a curtain on one of the windows overlooking the yard had just twitched. It was dusk and the room behind the curtain wasn’t lit, and yet Myka was sure of the movement, just as she was sure that the room in question was the one she’d put Wells into; the first on the third floor, which usually stood empty during the gathering.

Then another movement closer to her caught her eye. Pete was standing by himself, gazing through the windows to where Jane was now playing with the baby.

“Hey, partner,” she called out to him in a low voice, so as not to startle him. 

He turned to her with a smile. “Hey, Mykes,” he replied. He stretched out an arm, and she accepted the offer of his hug readily. They both turned back to look through the window.

“Thinking back to when Dean was this small?” she asked after a moment. “Seems like it was only last year.”

He smiled and squeezed her shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. 

“You’re doing a good job being their not-dad,” Myka said. “Seriously, you’re great.”

“I just… try to be what my dad was for me, you know?”

Myka nodded. Pete’s dad, chief of the local fire brigade, had been killed when Pete had been twelve. For a while after, Pete had planned to become a firefighter like his father, but had instead chosen to enlist in the Marine Corps – and there he’d met, and fallen in love with, Amanda Martin. Their relationship had been strong, but not strong enough to patch over the hole Pete still felt after losing his father; he’d started to drink to numb his feelings, and that hadn’t ended well, both for his relationship and for his career. After he’d been found on duty passed-out drunk, Amanda had broken up with him, and had stayed in the Marines while Pete had asked to be discharged. While he took over his uncle’s laundry business in town, Amanda rose through the ranks. And while she was doing so, she met another fellow Marine, who she fell in love with, married, and had twins and a single son with. 

And then that Marine had been killed in the line of duty. Pete had reached out to Amanda – not to resume his place at her side, but to simply be there for her as a friend. And Amanda, struggling with three pre-school children, had taken him up on his offer, and with his help had made a home for herself out here in the mountains, first working in, then taking over the local grocery store.

Whatever was between them was theirs to figure out, that’s what Myka thought about it. Clearly Pete was a father figure for Sam, Cadie and Dean; clearly he and Amanda got along well enough to make this arrangement work; and anything else was nobody’s business but theirs. 

-_-_-

From the first room of the third floor, Helena Wells watched their embrace. At least this was only a hug. No kissing, no hanky-panky.

Helena snorted at herself. What were the chances that this was just a friendly hug, not a hug between potential or even actual romantic partners? 

Besides, watching Bering carry around a baby had been worse. Much worse.

She grimaced and turned away from the window to face her darkening room. Her expression darkened, too, and she flicked on the lights almost angrily. Sitting in the dark, brooding while others celebrated being together, now that was being altogether too dramatic. There was no point to it. She would, as she’d told her assistant earlier, simply wait this out and make the best of it; if yesterday’s dinner and today’s breakfast was anything to go by, she would be well-fed and well-entertained at the very least. These people had welcomed her with a smile, despite the fact that everyone knew who she was and who she’d been working for. No one had brought it up; no one had pried, despite Jean Bering’s teasing this morning. Everyone had been perfectly polite – and it had hurt. 

Helena pursed her lips in anger at herself. There was no need at all to be hurt by this, no need to long for something she wouldn’t be offered here. This was expedient in an emergency, nothing more. In the circumstances, it was more than she could have hoped for. She might have, had she pressed the issue, gotten MacPherson to put her up in his hotel – she hadn’t wanted to, though, not after the words they’d had. And had Myka Bering not accepted her, she might have had to humble herself in front of the man, which would have been insufferable. No, this truly was the best she could have hoped for – why, then, was this so painful? 

There was a knock on the door. 

Helena pulled herself together. “Come in,” she called out. 

“Hey,” Myka Bering said, poking her head through the crack in the door. “Everything okay?”

“Fine, thank you.” Helena gestured. “Do come in, please, Ms. Bering.”

Bering stepped inside the room. “I hope we didn’t overwhelm you yesterday,” she said. “I mean I understand that this can seem like a lot, but we’re really not that bad.”

“I know, I know,” Helena said with a reassuring smile. “And I’m not usually this… nongregarious. I had to re-arrange my travel schedule, though, and after I was finally done with that I was – well, quite frankly, I was a bit put out. And I didn’t want to spoil the festivities by being the… Grunch, is it not?”

“Grinch,” Bering said with a chuckle that was dangerously endearing. 

“Grinch,” Helena repeated, “in your midst.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” Bering said. A smile lingered on her face. “I’ve come to invite you to tonight’s dinner if you like – we kind of have this thing over the winter solstice where we have a fire going all night, and to tend it, we stay up, eat lots of food, play games, tell stories, that kind of thing. Oh, and fireworks before dawn, to make sure the sun understands it’s supposed to come up now.” She hesitated for a moment, running a hand through her hair until it came to rest at the nape of her neck. “I understand being annoyed about being stuck here, but you’d be welcome to join us.”

“I wouldn’t want to presume-”

“You wouldn’t be,” Bering interrupted quickly, as if she’d been waiting for this kind of reaction. “You wouldn’t be the first new face at the table. Don’t worry about that. Unexpected guest, remember? We’d be happy to have you. And if this does take as long as Boxing Day, we’ll just be your replacement family for Christmas.” She did a little double-take and added, “that is, if you’re celebrating Christmas. Or Hannukah. Izzy and Artie will light the first candle tonight. Abigail will hold a Taoist ritual tomorrow. We don’t have any Muslim traditions because none of us-” she stopped herself with a shake of her head. “I’m babbling. Sorry.” Taking a deep breath, she continued, “Anyway, you will be absolutely welcome.”

“I will… I will think about it.” Helena said. 

Bering’s smile faltered slightly, but she nodded and, soon after, left. 

Helena stared after her. When Bering had said ‘replacement family’, Helena had felt a sudden yearning in her heart that had almost taken her breath away. Had Bering noticed? Had that prompted the ‘babbling’? Or had she, because of the babbling, not perceived the look in Helena’s eyes? 

Helena huffed a dry laugh. Family. 

Who would have thought that she might stumble upon strangers ready to offer up themselves as replacement family in the middle of nowhere, Colorado? And who would have thought that after everything Helena had gone through with her biological family, the offer would tug this much at her heartstrings?


	3. Chapter 3

If Wells had hoped to make a quiet entrance, she was mistaken. As soon as she appeared at the dinner table, there was a hubbub of hellos and welcomes. Claudia waved her over to her side of the table immediately – she’d kept a free seat between her and Todd on purpose, Myka knew. 

Myka was close enough to them to be able to hear their topic of conversation, and was glad when it veered away from particle acceleration and cutting edge experiments and towards other, easier topics. Not that she wanted to deprive Claudia from her chance to shine, but Wells had seemed reluctant to join them in the first place, and Myka didn’t want her decision to come down for dinner to be rewarded by a heavy discussion about the elusive Higgs boson. If she didn’t want it, of course – if a heavy discussion about the elusive Higgs boson was her ideal in dinner conversation, then Myka was all for it. 

“You’re gawping,” Abigail said on Myka’s other side, and Myka’s head snapped round. 

“I’m not,” she said firmly, but the blush had already started. 

Abigail grinned knowingly, but dropped the matter. 

She did direct another grin at Myka when, as the party moved towards the big fire pit in the middle of the sitting room, Myka made sure to sit even closer to Wells than before. Myka pointedly ignored that one, and proceeded to ask Wells about her opinion of her namesake’s works or if she even knew them at all well enough to have any opinion on them.

As the night rolled on and the yule log burned in the center of the fire pit, Myka found out that not only was Wells knowledgeable about the physics of subatomic particles, but well-read and witty. When the charades started, Wells held her own, which was admirable in a crowd where everyone knew everyone else, sometimes since they were old enough to wear diapers. Then, at nine o’clock, Jane, Jean and Vanessa handed out pencils and small strips of paper.

Wells, who at this point was seated – completely by happenstance – right next to Myka, turned and asked, “What are these for, Ms. Bering?”

“The list,” Myka said, and added, “and please, call me Myka.” It had kept nagging at her all night, but there hadn’t been a good moment – but this was it. Wells shouldn’t be the only one in the room to have to call her by her last name.

Wells smiled back in acknowledgement. “Helena, please, then,” she replied. “What kind of list?”

Of course she didn’t know, Myka reprimanded herself. “Um, we make a list. Like, have you ever seen Star Trek Deep Space Nine?”

Helena looked startled. “Some, yes?”

“Like what the Bajorans do,” Myka said, wondering if ‘some’ was enough to give Helena an idea of what on Earth – or Bajor – Myka was talking about. “A list of problems that trouble you,” she went on with an awkward gesture, “stuff that you want to overcome. You write it down and then toss it into the fire, so that as the list turns to ashes, so do your troubles.”

“I see.” Helena hesitated.

“Some of us don’t write down negative things but hopes for the future instead,” Myka added. “Abigail, for example. For her, the rising smoke takes those hopes and wishes to the ancestors and they’ll help her make them come true.”

Helena nodded slowly but didn’t touch pencil to paper. 

“I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Myka went on. “Or you could write down ‘pass being closed’ and see if that does anything.”

It was just a jest, but it seemed to somehow free Helena. She sat up straighter and shook out her shoulders. “That,” she said, “is an excellent idea. Thank you, Myka.” She started to write.

Myka stared at her for a moment, then turned to her own list. For some reason, the sound of her name spoken in Helena’s voice and diction drowned out any thought about what to put on her list. Eventually, she put down a short list of repairs that the Bering’s needed, on the basis that they worked both as ‘problems she wanted to see crumble into ashes, and appeals for a higher power’s help.’

“How much longer, Fargo?” Claudia called from somewhere to Myka’s right. 

“Solstice is at exactly ten thirty,” Douglas replied. “We’ve got ten more minutes. Get tossin’, guys, and then get ready for the jump!”

Cheers greeted his announcement, and people stood and stepped close to the fire, tossing in their offerings. 

Helena shook her head in confusion. “What does he mean by ‘the jump’?” She eyed the fire pit and the large chimney hood above it. “We won’t be jumping the fire, will we? There hardly seems space.”

“But what are atoms if not lots and lots of space with some random bits of energy here and there?” Claudia declared, draping herself across Myka’s shoulders from behind. “Myka, I wanna jump with you.”

“As every year, Claud,” Myka smiled back at her. “Mom, do you mind?” she asked Jean who was sitting on her other side. 

“I… oh. Um-” Jean seemed oddly hesitant. 

“Please, don’t go to any trouble,” Helena said, catching up on Jean’s reluctance. “If my spot would do for you, Claudia, I’d be happy to move.” She quickly took a step forward and threw her list into the fire, then made space for Claudia when she stepped back. 

All around the fire, people were milling around to find the perfect spot. Claudia quickly inserted herself between Myka and Helena, and she and Myka tossed in their little scrolls together. As they stepped back, Jean took Myka’s other hand. 

“Fargo’s gonna count down from ten,” Claudia told Helena earnestly, “and then we jump.”

Helena’s brow was still furrowed in confusion, so Myka added, “On the spot. Just jump in the air. Enter the new year flying, if you will.”

“Yeah, if you’re in the air while the solstice happens, the dark won’t find you. Or something.” Claudia was clearly tipsy, but Myka didn’t mind. Everyone always imbibed responsibly, out of respect for Pete. 

Before Helena could say anything, Douglas started his countdown. 

Claudia stage-whispered “High as you can!” to Helena, and then it was time.

“Two, one, ZERO!!!” Everyone jumped, and everyone came down whooping and laughing. If this truly was the start of something new, a new year or cycle or whatever, Myka mused, laughing was a good way to start it. 

She reached out and hugged Jean, who hugged her back fiercely. “Happy Solstice, mom,” Myka said. 

“Happy Solstice, kid,” Jean replied. “May light always find you.”

“And you, mom.”

On Myka’s other side, Claudia was trying to hug Helena, but that didn’t seem to be going to well. As Myka turned around to them, Claudia was apologizing profusely. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Helena said, and Claudia ducked her head meekly. Then she noticed Myka. 

“Myka! Happy Solstice!”

“Happy Solstice, Claud.” Myka hugged the young woman every bit as fiercely as Jean had hugged her. “May light always find you.”

“And you!” Claudia beamed. Then she craned her head. “Gotta find Josh,” she said, already distracted. 

“Go on, then,” Myka smiled at her. 

“Happy Solstice,” Helena said as Claudia skipped across the room to another small group of people. “I gather that’s the right thing to say?” Suddenly she looked uncertain. “Am I allowed to say it, too?”

“Of course you are,” Myka said quickly. “Happy Solstice to you too. May light always find you,” she added, hoping that the blessing wouldn’t feel presumptuous to Helena.

“And you,” Helena responded with a peculiar gravitas. She looked at Myka for a moment longer than Myka felt strictly comfortable with, then, just as Myka was about to say something, dropped her gaze and looked around the room instead. “The festivities aren’t over, are they? You said they lasted all night.”

Myka nodded. “M-hm,” she brought out, then cleared her throat. “Yeah, all night. Technically, sunrise is at twenty past seven, but due to the mountains, we won’t see it until half past. So at ten past, Claudia starts the fireworks and they’ll burn until the sun comes up.”

Helena’s eyes widened. “That’s nine more hours,” she said, then quickly shook her head. “Which I should have known, I suppose. I simply hadn’t mapped it out in actual hours.”

Myka smiled. “Yeah, took me the same way the first time we made a plan.”

“I’ve come across this several times now, from several people,” Helena said with a teasing glint in her eyes. “It would appear you like plans, Ms. Bering.”

Myka laughed out loud. “I have no idea what people said to give you that impression, Ms. Wells – I don’t _like_ plans.”

“I love plans!” 

“She loves plans!” 

It came from at least three different mouths around them, all laughing. Myka laughed too, shaking her head defenselessly. What could she have said? It was true, after all.

As people settled down, the storytelling began. Spooky stories, now that the year had turned – the kids squealed with delight at every gruesome tale. Some were so good that every pop of the fire made people jump; some were silly, some were cautionary; some were old, some were invented on the spot. Helena told a vampire story with enough verve to make people forgive and forget it wasn’t all that new – to be fair, everyone else had had all year to prepare their story, and she hadn’t, Myka told herself. 

The night wore on, and the kids started to get sleepy – and not just them. Jane, Rebecca and Todd got up around midnight to prepare snacks and coffee while Pete chased Sam and Cadie around to restock the fire, goading them into delightedly scared giggles with dire tales of the fire going out during the longest night of winter. Dean was putting in a valiant effort to stay awake, but at ten past one, he fell asleep on the sofa next to Emily’s cot. 

At two, Artie flipped open the keyboard of the upright in the corner of the sitting room, and started playing songs that people sang along to. His list contained everything from the Beatles to Hava Nagila, and if Hugo Miller didn’t hit the notes quite right, his enthusiasm more than made up for it, and everyone else similarly afflicted. Myka was relieved to hear that Helena’s singing voice was just about as shaky as her own, and that Helena needed a good shot of whiskey in her coffee to even find the courage to sing. 

And since Helena was not the only one whose tongue was loosened by some libation or other, the time inevitably came when she was put on the spot to answer questions about herself. From where she went to school to what the difference was between marmalade and jam, people kept firing question after question. Sam, whose favorite author happened to be Helena’s namesake, seemed incredibly disappointed to hear that Helena didn’t know if she was the man’s great-great granddaughter or other kind of relation. Fargo dared to ask if Helena was single, and seemed emboldened when she answered ‘yes’; Myka took note of that, resolving to remind him of the talk she’d had with him last morning if necessary.

It was also Douglas who asked about Helena’s work for MacPherson, but Jean stopped him, and with that, Helena’s time in the spotlight was over. People began talking in small groups, and Helena excused herself – probably to find a bathroom, Myka assumed. Then she saw, a few moments later, movement outside the window: Helena had gone outside. 

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured to Kelly, who was seated next to her, deep in conversation with Pete. Without waiting for a reply, Myka got up, grabbed a couple of blankets off one of the couches, and headed after Helena. 

The night air was cold, but not unpleasantly so, in contrast to the heat of the sitting room. “Hey,” Myka called out to Helena and held out one of the blankets. “Just in case,” she explained. 

“Thank you,” Helena said, then turned to look at the sky again.

Myka waited for a moment to see if there would be any further conversation or if Helena wanted to be left alone. Right as she turned to leave, the other woman spoke again. 

“It’s cleared up.”

Blinking in surprise, Myka looked at the sky. “Oh,” she said. Then she smiled. “Hopefully it’ll hold until sunrise,” she added. “It looks amazing, dawn in the mountains. I’d love for you to see that.”

A small smile flickered across Helena’s face and she made a sound in the back of her throat that could mean anything or nothing. Again, silence lingered, and again, Myka made to turn. Helena actually reached out and touched her wrist. “Please,” she said quietly, “if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Staying?” Myka replied. “Nah.” She shook out the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “You should bundle up, too,” she said. “With the cloud cover gone, it’s gonna get cold quick out here.”

This time, Helena’s smile lingered, but she did pull the blanket around her. “Thank you.” After another moment’s silence, she said, “The sky looks incredible.”

“Doesn’t it though?” Myka said softly. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of that. One of the things I missed most in Boulder.”

“College?” Helena guessed, and Myka nodded. “What did you study, may I ask?”

“Double major English and Russian,” Myka replied, and when the inevitable questioning look came, explained, “I wanted to know more about Russia than just ‘Soviets bad’.”

Helena chuckled. “I see. What is your take on Russia, then?”

For a while, Myka held forth on her fascination for the large country, its language that was so different, its history, its politics, its literature. Then, she stopped herself. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I got carried away.”

Helena smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll listen to anything brought forth with such enthusiasm.”

Myka blushed. Then, emboldened by the gin and tonic she’d allowed herself an hour ago, she asked, “What are you enthusiastic about, then?”

Surprisingly, Helena blushed at that, and dropped her gaze. She was silent for a long time, and it wasn’t the companionable silence from the beginning of their conversation – this was awkward. Uncomfortable. 

“I’m sorry,” Myka said finally, if only to break that silence. “That was too personal. I… I am sorry.”

Helena didn’t react for a moment, then looked up. Her face was oddly blank. “Don’t worry,” she said, but this time, her delivery made Myka, if anything, worry even more. 

There was a sudden commotion inside, and both their heads turned towards the windows. Then Myka heard Amanda shout “Dean!!” and ran inside. 

“What happened?” she called out, to anyone who’d listen. 

“He’s choking on something,” Pete snapped back, and then a slender, blanket-wrapped body streaked past Myka, past him, descended on the even more slender body on the couch, pulled him upright, and _heaved_. As a small round object shot out of Dean’s mouth and Pete rushed forwards to catch the slumping child, Helena disappeared as quickly as she’d come. 

It took half an hour for Dean to calm down, and almost twice as long for Amanda and Pete to do the same. When asked, Dean told them how he’d woken up, grabbed a handful of nuts from a bowl on the coffee table in front of his couch, and had then started choking on one of them.

“You were a bit too sleepy,” Pete said reassuringly. “No big deal, little man. Maybe next time you wake up, don’t immediately eat something, hey? Give it a little time?”

Dean nodded solemnly. “‘m sorry,” he mumbled, and snuggled closer to his mom, who was still teary-eyed. 

“It’s alright,” she told him, kissing the top of his head. “It’s okay. I love you, okay?”

Dean nodded into her side. “Love you too.”

“Okay, guys, show’s over,” Kelly announced, clapping her hands once. Give them a bit of space, yes? C’mon, let’s see what needs eating.”

It was then that Myka noticed that Helena was gone. And as much as she searched for her, she didn’t find her for the rest of the night. 

-_-_-

When the fireworks began, part of Helena was glad that the mishap with Dean hadn’t put people off continuing with their traditions. 

The rest of her just wrapped herself more tightly in her sheets as she cried.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey Abigail, did you see Hel- Ms. Wells?” Myka asked from the kitchen door. Just how long could anyone go without food? Wells was bound to have come by the kitchen, right? Even if she hadn’t come to breakfast. It was almost lunchtime now; surely she had-

Abigail looked up from where she was scrubbing a pan. “Yeah, she came by earlier and asked if she could come and get some leftovers later.”

Myka swore softly under her breath. “And did you tell her she could?”

“Yeah I did,” Abigail gave back, “why wouldn’t I? She wouldn’t be the first one to- hang on a minute.” She let the pan splash into the sink. “Myka Bering, are you-? You are, aren’t you?”

“Am I what?” Myka asked waspishly.

“Interested in her!” Abigail shouted in triumph, punching the air. “I knew it!”

“You knew what?” Pete asked, sauntering into the kitchen and heading for the leftovers fridge. 

“Myka’s after the Brit. Helena,” Abigail added in a sing-song voice.

“You are what?!” This stopped Pete in his tracks, which, considering his target, was a feat.

“I am not!” Myka protested. “I’m just… she’s the odd one out, isn’t she? I just want to be a good host and make sure she doesn’t feel left out.”

“Oh sure, sure,” Pete nodded appeasingly, while giving Abigail a significant look. “I think the lady doth protest too much.”

Myka balled her fists, as she did every time Pete butchered a Shakespeare quote. “Really?” she asked of the sky. “Like, really?!”

“Definitely,” Abigail told Pete. 

Myka threw up her hands in disgust and left the kitchen. 

After a good long while debating the merits of each of her options, she ended up in her office, starting up her computer. She wasn’t spying on the woman, she told herself. She was worried, that was all. This wasn’t an abuse of technology or anything.

During the electric update, the hotel had switched to key card activated lights fixtures to save on energy, and the fact that you could tell if someone was in their room by checking which circuit was activated was purely coincidental. _Purely_ coincidental, Myka repeated as she started up the program that would show her. 

Room 301 was dark. Not activated. So either Wells was sitting in an unlit room – which she’d done before, to be fair – or she was out and about somewhere. 

Myka’s memory readily presented her with the fact that Wells’ suitcase hadn’t looked anywhere near large enough to hold actual warm outdoor gear. 

Myka cursed again. A small green circle caught her eye on the computer monitor. Motion detected in the gazebo. She sighed. At least the gazebo was clear of snow inside. It had windows, even. And it meant that she didn’t have to go up to the third floor and knock on a door and not know what to do if she got an answer.

Halfway out the door, inspiration struck her, and she detoured to the kitchen before she headed out. 

-_-_-

“Hey,” Helena heard from the doorway. She didn’t have to turn around to know who was intruding. 

“Good evening,” she said, as frostily as she could – and considering the temperature her fingers were reaching, that was quite a bit.

“How do you feel about tea in the afternoon?” Bering asked. No, Myka. First name basis, regrettably. A thermos was held out into Helena’s field of vision. She gritted her teeth and tried not to think of the lips of said mouth or the way they would curl up in a smile, or stretch in a laugh, or wrap around a Russian quote. Or the way the woman had cooed at the baby, or looked up at the Lattimer man.

“That depends,” she said instead, trying to at least sound polite and knowing that she was failing spectacularly with these two meager words. 

“Ah,” Myka replied with an almost audible nod. 

For a moment, Helena hoped that the nod meant that Myka had understood that Helena wanted to be left alone – then she heard the sound of the top of a thermos being unscrewed and the gurgle of liquid – tea, presumably – being poured into a receptacle. Then, again, something was held out next to her. 

She accepted the mug – porcelain, at least – with a barely suppressed sigh. “Thank you.”

“You haven’t had any yet,” Myka said lightly, calling back to their conversation from the first morning. 

Again, Helena gritted her teeth. The woman had no right to be this charming. 

“I had to guess,” Myka said as if there hadn’t been an awkward break in the conversation. Helena lifted the tea mug to her face as Myka went on, “Assam? Darjeeling? Milk? Sugar? Lemon?” There was a chuckle from behind as Helena visibly recoiled at the word ‘lemon’. “Well, that answers that one, I guess.”

Despite herself, Helena found the corners of her mouth going up. “Positively, I hope,” she found herself saying, despite her best intentions, despite her solemn resolution to stay clear of any further involvement.

“You’re gonna find out once you try it,” Myka said lightly. 

Despite herself, Helena found her nose dipping closer to the mug. “Darjeeling?”

Again, the chuckle floated towards her. “I’m not gonna repeat myself,” Myka Bering said. 

This made Helena’s smile deepen. She blew lightly on the tea, then took a tentative sip. 

She heard Myka shift behind her, and suddenly knew that the other woman was on tenterhooks to find out how her gift of tea was received. Well, turnabout was fair play, was it not? 

She kept her silence and took another sip, waiting for Myka to make the next move. 

It took another silent sip for Myka to give a very small, surprisingly effective growl, and say, “Okay, I’ll bite. Do you like it?” 

Helena turned to her and smiled in feigned surprise. “Oh, you couldn’t tell?”

Myka rolled her eyes and laughed. “I barely know you; how could I?”

“And yet here you are,” Helena said, letting her gaze sweep over the secluded little building to take her eyes off of the view of Myka laughing. 

“Like I said,” Myka replied, a bit more seriously now, “I don’t want you to feel left out.” 

Helena’s heart sank like a stone. There was nothing to reply to that, was there. Helena _was_ the odd one out. And by not joining the breakfast table, she had re-established that fact. And yet here Myka was, despite all that. Helena could at least be polite. Nothing more, simple politeness. Myka deserved that much; it wasn’t her fault. Helena gritted her teeth and took another sip of the tea. It was good. Nice, strong Assam, steeped just right. She let it sit on her tongue for a moment, enjoying the aroma, then swallowed. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I do prefer Assam without milk.” Talking about tea was safe, wasn’t it. “I know many people mitigate its boldness by adding milk,” she went on, “but I like that boldness; I _want_ that boldness when I choose Assam. Having said that, my favorite is simple English Breakfast, with milk but no sugar. Not very sophisticated, I know; remnant of a mis-spent youth, I suppose.” She said the last sentence lightly; she’d said it often enough before and it had always served as a chuckle-and-let-drop comment when people got too inquisitive. However, this time she found that it clanged into the quiet gazebo like slabs of lead. 

Myka cleared her throat. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she said. 

“It is nice and warming,” Helena replied, trying to save the conversation. “I appreciate it. And please don’t-” she stopped herself and turned to Myka fully. The leaden slabs she’d uttered had drawn Myka’s gaze to the floor. “Please don’t,” Helena continued in slightly softer tones, “think that I dislike this. I do appreciate you making and bringing me tea.”

Myka nodded, but kept her eyes on the tips of her boots for a moment longer. Then she looked up. “This is gotta be hard for you, and I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Helena stared at her, almost open-mouthed. Then she shook her head, to get a better grip on her thoughts and her emotions. No, no and no. What was she thinking? This was not what she wanted, not here, not now, not ever. Besides, hadn’t Myka hugged Lattimer? Myka wasn’t here for… whatever tiny spark in Helena’s mind was whispering to other parts of her mind. If anything, Myka was here to be friendly, that was all. And Helena would do well to remember that. “But I’m the one who’s imposing,” she said.

“That’s not what I meant,” Myka said vehemently.

Helena called up her most British breathiness. “I do apologize-” 

Myka deflated, and for the fraction of a heartbeat, Helena wanted nothing more than to take back her words and reach out to this woman who was simply trying to be kind. “No, I’m sorry,” Myka said quietly. “I understand.”

Helena knew that this was at least partly true, and it only made things worse. Some of that, somehow, must have gotten through to Myka, because the next words that Myka said were polite, perfunctory, nothing more than small talk. “Dinner’s at six. You’re invited, of course, but if you choose not to join us, people will understand. If you’d like to be outside some more, there’s coats and boots et cetera on the far-left shelf in the mudroom that’s for anyone to use. Feel free to make use of them.” And with that, she turned and headed towards the gazebo door. 

Helena was left holding a mug and staring at a door that had, silently and without fuss, but very definitely closed. 

-_-_-

Helena hadn’t joined them at dinner. And like Myka had said, people had understood. She had understood. 

“No news about the pass reopening?” Jane asked as they’d all sat down, and when Myka had said no, that had been that.

As warm as both dinner and company had been, knowing that Helena was in her room, actively choosing not to take part, had been a little pebble of unease among the comfort of the evening, and not just for Myka. She’d seen others shoot furtive glances at the door, but no one said anything about the elephant who was clearly not in the room. 

There were, again, charades after dinner, and then Tracy went to look in on Emily, and Amanda took the kids to bed. In a way, it was less intense than the day before, more relaxed. Small sub-groups formed and dissolved as people drifted from this friend to that. Artie and Vanessa sat together for quite a while with Trailer between their feet, and then Hugo joined them and it looked as though a moment had been lost, but somehow Hugo was drawn into it instead when Trailer put his chin on Hugo’s leg and Vanessa and Artie both beamed. Izzy and Mrs. Frederic were seen discussing some political topic or other – nothing new there – but this year, Abigail was joining them, and Myka wondered briefly if she should worry for the world that wouldn't know what hit them if those three started to tackle things together. Then her eyes fell on Amanda, Pete and Kelly, who were sitting on the same sofa all squished together, and for a moment she thought she saw Amanda’s hand linger on Kelly’s waist, but then Liam came up to Myka, wanting to know something about next morning’s breakfast, and Myka focused on the merits of French toast over hash browns instead. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” her mom spoke up next to her after Liam had gone, pressing a glass of champagne into her hand. With her other hand, she’d pulled Tracy behind her, so that when Myka turned around to her, the three Bering women shared a little bubble of space. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, mom.” Both Bering sisters echoed the sentiment, and clinked glasses with their mother. 

“I love you two,” Jean replied. “And I’m grateful for you, and for this.” She gestured around the room with her champagne. “It is so lively and loving. I never… when Warren…” she stopped to compose herself, then went on, “I never would have thought I’d feel this happy again, after your father died.” She turned and smiled at someone over Myka’s shoulder, and when Myka turned and followed her gaze, she was stunned to see Jane heading towards them. More stunned, speechless even, when Jane stepped up next to Jean and wound an arm around her waist. “We, um…” Jean began, blushing, and Jane grinned and nudged her in encouragement. “I know, I know,” Jean told her. “It’s just… girls, please don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Tracy said slowly. She blinked. “Are you… and Jane… an item?” She blinked again. “Are you… in lesbians with her?”

Myka groaned. “Tracy!” she almost wailed. 

“In bisexuals, if anything,” Jane said dryly, “but essentially, yes. That’s what your mother is trying to get across here.”

The next moments were spent hugging, and laughing, and congratulating, and maybe, perhaps, shedding a tear or two. The commotion alerted others that something was going on, the announcement was made again – if with a bit more decorum – and then there was more hugging and laughing and congratulating, and an excited bark or two. 

“My mom and your mom, Mykes! Isn’t that awesome?” Pete shouted and held up his hand for a high-five. 

As Myka, with an indulgent grin, slapped her palm into his, she saw a dark-haired, pale-skinned head retreat around the door. Her giddiness receded in an instant. 

“Mykes? What’s wrong?”

As attuned to her as he was, Myka didn’t want Pete’s concern right now. “Not now, Pete.” She headed towards the back of the room, but then Artie waylaid her, with yet more congratulations and the reassurance that he didn’t mind at all whatsoever, and by the time Myka reached the stairs, there was no one there. 

Myka realized she was still holding a half-full glass of champagne and downed it in one go. Turning, she caught Pete’s eyes. And then Pete’s eyes wandered to Abigail, with a significant waggle of his eyebrows “Not a word,” Myka told the two of them, then went to refill her glass. 

-_-_-

Helena paced her room. 

So, alright, the Bering household was finding happiness in love; in unusual love, but these days, who cared. Obviously, not the people downstairs. 

Obviously, there was love everywhere down there. Love and family, just the thing for Christmas. 

Helena’s chin jutted out bitterly. It was just her luck. She shouldn’t have gone back downstairs. Hell, she should have turned on her heel and walked away from this hotel the moment she’d laid eyes on the ‘closed for a family occasion’ sign; she should have never even come here. She should have swallowed her pride, should have made James MacPherson put her up in his best room – it sure was no penthouse anyway – should have never taken on this job in the first place. Even when she’d seen the initial outline, the first ledger sent in the proposal, she could have told MacPherson what was wrong without ever setting foot in this town. 

Fates save her from vain old men, she thought bitterly as she remembered the row she’d had with the man when she’d laid out his – very limited – options to him. 

She hadn’t been in a good mood when she’d taken the cab out of town, and being turned back had darkened it further. 

And then Myka Bering had appeared behind the glass panels of the Bering’s doorway, lit up as if from heaven, a riot of curls over casual clothes, the polar opposite of James MacPherson and everything he stood for. 

Helena should have turned and run right there and then, and she hadn’t. And now here she was. Infatuated with a woman who clearly had a partner, who clearly had a loving family, who clearly had everything she needed, and clearly didn’t count a stray consultant to be among those necessities. 

Helena resolved that she needed to clear her head. It wasn’t even ten yet; not late enough to go to bed, and even if it had been: in her current state she’d only be tossing and turning. She looked outside the window – the sky was still clear, still filled with stars; it would be cold, too cold for a walk in her clothes. She obviously hadn’t packed for a winter wonderland, just for a business trip spent mostly in hotel rooms, taxis and airplanes. Then she remembered: far left shelf in the mudroom, even if the memory of Myka’s so very detached voice brought back new pain. 

Helena nodded to herself. A walk would do her good.


	5. Chapter 5

Myka knocked on the door almost frantically. “Pete,” she hissed, trying hard not to wake anyone. “Pete, wake up!”

Finally, she heard a commotion inside the room, and Pete’s voice murmuring something. Then another voice, slightly higher. Myka shook her head. Fine, so he’d had someone in there with him. Even if the options of who that might be were severely limited: it wasn’t important right now. 

The door opened and he stood in front of her, tying the ties of his PJ pants. “Mykes, what’s wrong?”

Another door opened further down – Claudia had never been a deep sleeper. Myka flapped her hand at her in an ‘it’s alright’ gesture. “Helena is gone,” she told Pete in a low voice. “It’s three in the goddamn morning and she’s not in her room.”

“Which you know how, exactly?” came an amused voice from inside the room – Kelly. 

Myka rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I had a hunch, okay?” she said flatly. “Woke up, felt restless, let Trailer out to pee, saw that boots and a coat were missing from the shelf in the mudroom. Checked the outside CCTV. Pete, she’s been gone since ten; there’s _no_ way someone takes a five-hour walk in this cold, no matter how… I don’t know, upset or whatever they are.”

“You’re right. Pete, she’s right.” It wasn’t Kelly’s voice, but it had come from inside Pete’s room nevertheless.

Myka’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Amanda?” Then she caught herself. Not. Important. “Okay, now that I’ve got all of you awake-” 

Amanda cut in, “You got yourself two rescue parties. You and Pete take the track towards Beak Ridge, Kelly and I will head down the road towards the ponds.”

“I’ll hold down the fort here,” Claudia said from behind them. “Take the walkie-talkies with you and keep me updated. If she shows up here, you’ll know.”

“And then we can kick her butt for being a pain in the same,” Pete nodded. “Let’s go.”

It was a matter of minutes until they were in the mudroom, except for Claudia who’d taken up post in the office. Trailer was weaving between their legs, way too excited to go back to sleep when there were walkies to be had. 

“Let’s take him,” Pete said. “He can sniff for her.” He turned to Myka with a suggestive wiggle of eyebrows. “Tell me you got something with her scent on it, partner.”

Myka slapped this chest with the back of her mittened hand. “No I do not,” she hissed, “get your mind out of the gutter. I’m not sure she even likes me.”

“Dude, have you _seen_ her _look_ at you?!” 

“Pete’s right,” Kelly said matter-of-factly. “Lots of moony-ness.” 

“Anyway,” Myka muttered, pointedly ignoring the nods Kelly’s words were getting from Amanda and Pete, “she’s wearing Bering’s boots and coat, there won’t be much of her own scent for Trailer to go on.”

Wordlessly, Amanda picked up another pair of boots from the shelf and held them out to the dog. “Here, Trailer,” she said, “get a noseful of this, alright?”

Trailer obediently sniffed the boots and looked up at her. 

“I have no idea how to do this,” Amanda admitted. “I thought that was it.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, give that here,” Kelly said in disgust. “Trailer, here,” she said, also holding the boot out to him. Then she took the dog’s leash and walked him out the door. “Sit.” On cue, Trailer sat down and looked up at Kelly expectantly. “Good job, Trailer,” she told him, to a thumping of his tail. She threw a pointed look over her shoulder. “And now we pray that Artie has taught him this, alright?” She nodded down at Trailer. “Now find. Find it, Trailer!”

With an excited bark, Trailer jumped to his feet and started sniffing the ground. 

“Holy smokes, it worked!” Pete exclaimed. Amanda shushed him. 

For a moment, all was quiet as the four of them waited for Trailer to find a, well, trail. He worked his way around the entranceway in loops, then gave a little yip and sat down next to the gate that marked the end of the Bering’s property and the beginning of Beak Ridge Track. 

“I don’t think you need to go down the hill, ladies,” Pete said to Amanda and Kelly. 

“Pete,” Kelly said patiently, “Trailer is thirteen years old and blind in one eye. He’s never been trained, like, really actually trained. And I bet even three days ago people were using Bering boots to take a hike back there. I’m not gambling someone’s life on those odds. Amanda and I will most definitely head down the hill. Maybe chica went to stare at the road closure and defrost it with the force of her wrath, who knows?” She shrugged, then grabbed her walkie-talkie to let Claudia know what happened. 

“Lattimer!” Amanda whisper-shouted to Pete. 

“Yes, major!” Pete gave back – their usual shout-out to the fact that Amanda had outranked Pete when they’d still been in the Marines. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Pete blinked and looked at Myka, who tilted her head as she went through their preparations in her mind. They all wore sturdy and warm clothes, they all had flashlights and walkie-talkies, the flashlights’ and walkie-talkies’ batteries were full-

“Rescue gear, soldier!” Amanda snapped. “Sorry Kelly, I know you’re all ready and raring to go, but what are we going to do if we find Wells and she’s incapacitated somehow?”

Myka withstood the temptation to smack her own forehead. “You’re right,” she said. 

“You got stuff, right?” Amanda asked Myka while Kelly consoled Trailer. 

Myka nodded. “We got spare hiking gear in the gear room; there should be at least some rope and a few harnesses. Maybe rescue sleds but I’m not sure.”

“Excellent,” Amanda nodded back. “Can you go and grab enough for both teams?”

“Yeah, give me a few minutes.”

When Myka came back, carrying one backpack on her back and one in her hand, Pete was holding a thermos in his hands. “Kelly made thermos bottles with some warm water.” 

“If she’s been out there for the full five hours,” Kelly said tersely, “she’ll be cold as hell, potentially hypothermic. This is just a stop-gap, but it’ll help.”

“Good idea,” Myka said as she handed the backpack to Amanda and took the thermos. “I found sixty yards of rope for each team, a climbing harness per person, and two rescue sleds – the rolled-up plastic thing on the side,” she explained and pointed to it. “You’re gonna need to put sticks in it to make it stable.”

Amanda nodded. “I’m familiar with them.”

“Good,” Myka said tersely. She patted the back of the backpack she was carrying. “Two first aid kits and emergency blankets are in the back inside pocket.”

“Good thinking, partner. Here, give me that, I’m stronger than you.” Pete gestured for Myka to give him the backpack instead. She rolled her eyes but acquiesced; he was right – he’d kept ‘fighting fit’, as he’d called it, even after leaving the Marines. “Okay,” Pete said as he put the thermos in the backpack, “I think we’re good to go. Mands, take care of the civilian, okay?” He kissed Amanda on the mouth, grinned at Kelly and dodged when she swatted at him, then turned to Myka with an expression of hurt innocence. “I swear I have no idea why you all insist on hitting me all the time.”

Myka rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Trailer,” she called out to the dog, who sat up and wagged his tail. “Claud,” she told the walkie-talkie, “we’re off now.”

“Understood, boss,” came the terse reply. “Good luck out there.”

-_-_-

It was dark on the trail except for their flashlights, and quiet except for the crunching of their boots and Trailer’s footfalls.

“Hey Pete?” Myka asked after they’d gone a couple hundred yards.

“Yeah,” Pete sighed in a resigned tone of voice. “I guess you wanna know about Kelly, Amanda and me now?” He’d clearly expected some kind of comment.

Myka chuckled. “I just wanna know if you’re all happy with this, that’s all.”

Pete nodded. “Yup,” he said, snapping out the p at the end. “And I get it, I do. Why you’re wondering. Or maybe even worrying. I mean Amanda and I – even we were worried. If it would work this time, or end up badly again. But I think – we think – we know what’s the problem, and we think that including Kelly-” he broke off. “No, that sounds wrong. We aren’t hoping that Kelly will magically solve all our problems. But… what we got… It’s working so far.”

At that, Myka raised her eyebrows. “So far?” How long had this been going on?

“Couple of months,” Pete said, as if he’d heard Myka’s question. “We haven’t told anyone, least of all the kids, because if this goes wrong, they’ll suffer most, and none of us wants that.”

“Yeah,” Myka agreed. Once again, she was hit by how much Pete loved these kids even though he wasn’t their biological father. 

“I’d never hurt them,” Pete said softly, almost to himself. “Or her. Or Kelly.”

“I know,” Myka said, nudging his shoulder. “You’re a good guy.”

“Ain’t I, though?” he grinned back at her. “Oh, hey, please don’t tell anyone, okay?” he added, sudden anxiousness in his voice. “I already asked Claudia, and she said ‘duh’, but I need to know-”

“Of course I won’t,” Myka said quickly, and just as quick, his smile was back. “I would never hurt any of you either, least of all the kids.”

“Thanks, partner.” He’d started calling her that ever since he’d realized that the Bering’s was his laundry’s biggest client, and she’d soon begun to reciprocate. He and Myka had been friends since kindergarten, and having them call each other ‘partner’ had raised some hopes in Jane and Jean particularly – but Myka and Pete had both agreed long ago that they made much better friends than they’d ever make lovers, and that had been that. When Amanda had come to town, Jane’s hopes for Pete and a wife and marriage had been raised again, but-

Myka shook her head free of these thoughts. In any case, Jane had a different relationship to think about now.

They trudged on in silence for a few minutes more. Trailer ran ahead of them. 

Then, “So, what _is_ between you and the British chick?”

“Nothing, Pete,” Myka said exasperatedly. “Jeez, it’s been two days that I’ve even met her, there is nothing that happens within two days, no matter what you’ve seen in movies.”

He shook his head vehemently at that. “Don’t rule it out, Mykes. You never know.”

Myka huffed. “I also don’t know what kind of person she is, okay? I mean how well do you know anyone after two days?” She flapped her arm, then held the light steady again.

“She eats with a knife and fork at the same time,” Pete pointed out. 

Myka groaned. “And that is _absolutely all_ I ever needed to know to decide if someone’s a suitable partner,” she said, with all the sarcasm she could muster. 

“A-ha!” Pete said, as if he’d just solved a case. Trailer’s head snapped around, and he came running back to Pete, tail wagging. “No, Trailer, sorry, sorry – uh, find, Trailer! Find it!” Trailer huffed out a bark, but did turn back to the trail again.

“What?” Myka asked, one hand stemmed onto her hip.

“Huh?”

“A-ha, what?” she repeated.

Pete’s eyebrows rose. “Hey _hey_ hey!” he sang. “A-ha, as in, you think she’s a suitable partner!”

“I don- are you even _listening_ to me?” Myka exclaimed. 

“But you think she’s attractive.”

“Pete, this dead tree would think she’s attractive, because she is. Have you _seen_ her?”

“A-ha!” he said again, and Myka groaned again. 

Then, all joking aside, Pete pointed to a gap in the bushes at the side of the trail. “Check it out, Mykes, maybe she fell through that. Trailer, buddy, come sniff this!”

Heart suddenly beating in her throat, Myka walked forwards carefully. She inspected the gap for a long time, as did he, as did Trailer. Then they looked at each other, and finally Myka shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, Trailer would have given some kind of indication, yes? But maybe…” She took a deep breath, turned half away from Pete, and called out “Helena? Can you hear me?”

“Oh, see, now _that’s_ a good idea,” Pete murmured. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

“Shhhhh,” Myka admonished him. “I won’t hear her.” And she called out Helena’s name again. She couldn’t hear anything, but Trailer cocked his head. Myka noticed. “Hey, Trailer,” she said slowly, heart still beating. “Trailer, find. Find her.”

Again, Trailer huffed. Again, he cocked his head. And then he began trotting along the path, and Pete and Myka first stared at each other for a moment, then hurried to follow him.


	6. Chapter 6

“Trailer, not so fast!” Myka shouted as she rushed after the dog.

“Christ, at this pace _we’re_ gonna slip and fall,” panted Pete next to her. 

Then Myka heard it too – a call barely loud enough to qualify as such. “Helena?” she shouted back, and thought she heard something vaguely affirmative. Then Trailer abruptly swerved off the road and down the hill, and suddenly Pete’s arm was blocking Myka’s progress. “Pete, what the-”

“ _Look_ ,” he said intently, pointing his other arm and the flashlight at the ground. “She must have slipped _right here_.”

Myka, too, pointed her light where he was looking. There was a swath of ice covering the path, a couple feet wide and easily ten yards long. 

“Must be water runoff from the hill,” Pete said, “pooled on the path, then trickled off it up ahead.”

Myka nodded. The leaves on one side of the path were disturbed; it did look like someone had slithered across them and down the hill. Myka shone her light down the most plausible trajectory, but apart from bushes and a few trees, she didn’t see anything.

Pete had already taken off the backpack. “Here,” he said, throwing one of the harnesses to her. “Suit up, Supergirl.”

Myka clumsily caught it in her left, then let it sink again. She took a deep breath and turned her back on Pete to face the downhill slope. “We are coming for you,” she shouted, as loud and as clearly as she could. “Are you alright?”

-_-_-

At the bottom of the slope, Helena suppressed a sob. How did you reply to this kind of question in this kind of state? ‘Define alright’, she wanted to shout. ‘Yes and no’, she wanted to shout. But she couldn’t even shout, could she.

She was certain enough that she hadn’t broken anything, but her knee was definitely sprained, and her ribs ached with every breath, much less a shout. Her feet and legs were numb; her trousers were woefully unsuited to lying on the ground in these temperatures, and the boots hadn’t been much help after she’d stopped moving. She was shivering so hard that her teeth chattered at times, and wasn’t able to stop it. Her head throbbed – she was sure she’d hit it on at least one tree trunk, sliding down here. No cut, she’d checked; but blimey, did it hurt. 

She was, in short, feeling wretched, and very much unable to get up the slope under her own power, but if she replied ‘no’, Myka might think that Helena was much more badly off than she truly was, and that wasn’t a good idea. So, wincing in preparation for the pain it would cause her, Helena took a deep breath and, as loud and as clearly as she could, replied, “Mostly?”

-_-_-

“‘Mostly’?” Myka turned to Pete. “Did she say _‘mostly’?_ Did you hear that too? What’s that supposed to mean? God, Pete, hurry!”

“Mykes, hey.” Pete stopped attaching the figure eight belayer to his harness and caught Myka’s shoulders. “Myka. Don’t panic. She’s got enough air to speak, and she’s alert enough to give you a suitable reply to your question. That’s good, okay? But she’s not alright enough to give you a clear ‘yes’, and that tells me she knows she’ll need help. But: she’s conscious, and lucid, and responsive. That’s all good, okay? Focus on that.”

“Okay,” Myka said weakly, and swallowed. Then she nodded. “Okay.” This time her voice didn’t waver. She double-checked the knot attaching the rope to her harness, then took out the walkie-talkie. “Claud? I’m about to go down. Have you heard back from Kelly and Amanda?”

“Yep,” Claudia’s voice crackled over the air, “they’re heading your way now. Be careful, okay? Pete, as soon as Kelly and Amanda are within range, they’re gonna want an update. As do I,” she added, sounding nervous. 

“No problem, Claud,” Pete replied. “Hey, I think it’s probably best if you wake up Doctor Vanessa,” he added. “Ms. Wells sounds as though she’s hurt; she’s fallen or slid at least thirty yards from what we can see here, and probably hit a few branches or something on her way down.” Then he grimaced and looked at Myka. “Sorry, Mykes.”

“Conscious, lucid, responsive,” she repeated back at him, though with a dark glare. 

“That’s the ticket,” he said approvingly. “Claud, you got that?”

“I did,” Claudia replied, sounding even more nervous now. “I’ll wake Doctor Calder up and tell her what happened.”

“Awesome. Kirk out.”

Myka shook her head at him, hooked the walkie-talkie to her left shoulder-strap, then stepped towards the edge of the path. “Alright?” she asked Pete, who’d found a sturdy young tree to brace against. 

“Alright,” he nodded. 

Myka crouched to lower her center of gravity, then stepped onto the slippery leaves. “Here we go,” she breathed as she started to make her way down. 

It was tense going, but not slow. She slipped several times, and Pete held her up, but she kept a steady pace, and finally she saw the red splash of a Bering coat hood. “Helena?” she called out once more. 

There was movement – a flop of an arm, Myka thought – and a short, high-pitched whine that had her hair standing on end. Then, “Yes?” came the reply, and Myka closed her eyes for a brief moment of gratitude. 

“I’m almost with you, okay?” she said, resuming her descent. Then, to the walkie-talkie, she said, “I see her, and she’s responded to my call. I’m almost with her.”

“Excellent,” Pete replied, “keep going.”

It took Myka maybe a minute more to get closer to Helena, though it seemed like much, much longer than that. Once there, Myka realized that the movement she’d seen – and probably the keening she’d heard – had been Trailer, who was lying pressed up against the curled-up woman, tail wagging at Myka’s approach. Again, Myka felt extremely grateful.

Luckily, Helena’s descent had taken her all the way to the foot of this incline. Myka wasn’t sure how they’d get her back up the hill, but at least there was no further down, no risk of dislodging her from some precarious precipice or similar scenarios that Myka’s brain had presented her with as she’d been making her way down. 

She huffed out a small laugh. Chances were _she’d_ been down this slope, as a kid. They’d always been out in the bushes, Pete and her, when they were smaller. She wondered if Pete remembered those days too.

“Hey,” she called out softly from two yards away. “I’m coming in.” She slid the rest of the way, and then tugged three times on the rope; the signal for Pete that she was where she needed to be. She felt the rope slackening and untied it from her harness, then turned to the prone figure in front of her.

“Good morning,” Helena said. Her voice was tense with pain.

Myka gave a laugh that was dangerously close to a sob. “You’re really taking this ‘keep calm’ British thing too seriously,” she said. All of a sudden, exhaustion washed over her. It was almost four in the morning, she’d been worried _sick_ , and Helena was making _jokes_. She took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, herself. “Okay,” she said, “what’s the situation; how do you feel? Anything broken?” 

Her eyes roamed across what she could see in the beam of her flashlight; she frowned sharply and sucked in a breath. Helena’s arms looked – _wrong_. Then, as Myka looked more closely, she relaxed: empty sleeves. Helena had pulled her arms into her coat, a sensible move to keep them, and her core, warm. Myka then checked Helena’s face, or as much of it as she could see with the hood obscuring most of it. There were a few shallow scratches on her left cheek – the one that was visible – but Myka could see no more blood than that. Helena’s skin seemed incredibly pale, but that might have been the flashlight not doing her already light skin tone any favors. Myka did see her shivering – heard her shivering, too, against the material of her coat. 

Helena was silent for a moment, then replied, “Cold, in… pain, and no, I don’t think so.” She swallowed harshly. “Thank you for… finding me.”

Five hours by herself, hurt, at the bottom of an incline, in the middle of the night and in freezing weather. Did she wonder if she would-? Myka gritted her teeth, pushing the thought away. Not. Important. “You’re welcome,” she said simply. “Do you think it’s okay if we try to get you out of here, or do we order that airlift?” That was it, keep it light, keep it teasing. 

“I don’t… think I’m in any position… to walk, much less… climb,” Helena said, shivers interrupting her words every now and then. “I sprained my… knee, and I can’t seem to… be able to move much. I don’t… think I could even sit… up.”

“That’s alright,” Myka said, still in a light, encouraging tone. “I’ve got an emergency sled; we can pull you up with that.” She shrugged out of her backpack and detached the rolled-up sled. When she looked back at Helena, she saw that the woman was shifting where she lay. Trailer was nosing her side, whining. “What are you- are you trying to sit up? No, don’t; stop!” she said, hunkering down next to Helena impatiently. “Don’t bother, okay? We’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry.”

This close, she could see how taut Helena’s face was, and relented a little. “I’m not… not a damsel in distress,” Helena said darkly. 

Again, Myka felt like laughing, or, alternately and somewhat refreshingly, wringing the woman’s neck. “I know,” she said, biting back any irresponsible reply. “I’m no white knight, either. No guarantees when it comes to Pete, though.” She pointed up towards the path. “He’s gonna poke fun at you for days if you let him, whinny noises and all. If he gets his hands on coconut shells somehow, he’ll be at it twenty-four-seven.”

Helena’s features darkened further, if that was even possible. “Pete,” she muttered. “Of… course.”

Myka frowned, then decided to let it go. This, too, whatever it was, was very much not important. “Alright,” she said instead, straightening up. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll get that sled set up; I’m gonna need some sticks for that, but that shouldn’t take me long. Then I’ll put you on it, tie you to it – no jokes, okay, I just don’t want you to fall off and roll back down – and then Pete and I will pull you up. Then we’ll take you home, and Doctor Calder will take a look at you.” She bent down again for a moment. “You are _not_ a damsel in distress,” she told Helena with all the empathy she could muster, “I know that. And I respect that. But right now, you can’t get up there on your own, so I’m going to help you whether you like it or not. If you want to be angry, be angry; it’ll probably make you feel warmer. I’ll be right back.” She turned aside and started looking for a bush with the right kind of shoots, and while she was doing that, she brought Pete up to speed.

All told, it took Myka about fifteen minutes to get Helena secured onto the sled. Helena was badly bruised; she winced or bit her cheek or gritted her teeth every time Myka shifted her leg or touched her torso, but she didn’t once cry out or even say anything. She was still shivering harshly, and for a moment, Myka thought about the thermos and the warm water in it, but decided that first things first: Helena could drink up at the path. The main thing was to get her up there. 

She grabbed her walkie-talkie again. “Okay, Pete, we’re ready here.”

“Good,” he replied instantly. “Kelly and Amanda are here now too; we’ll have her up in no time. Three tugs to tell you we’re about to start.”

“Gotcha,” Myka gave back. “I’ll make my own way back up; I know these slopes.”

“You, flaquita, will do no such thing,” Kelly said. From the sound of it, she hadn’t even used her own walkie-talkie, but had snatched Pete’s out of his hand. “We will throw a rope down to you when Helena is up here, but until then you will stay put or so God help me-” 

“You heard the lady, Mykes,” Pete interrupted her. 

“But-” Myka protested.

“No buts, soldier,” Amanda now butted in. “There’s no point in you slipping and falling and us having to do the same thing all over again. You’re coming up on the rope, and that’s that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Myka muttered.

“Atta girl,” Amanda replied, and the walkie-talkie crackled out.

“I suppose I… should be glad they sent _you_ down… here,” Helena said. “The friendliest… face, as it were.”

Myka sighed and put her mittens back on as she watched the rope slither up until it was taut. She hunkered down at the top of the sled and put her hand on the rope. “I guess,” she said, not meeting Helena’s eyes. Then, “Three tugs. Get ready.” 

Helena nodded. With a small jerk, the sled began to slide upwards. Myka could see Helena grit her teeth and didn’t envy her; it would be a long and bumpy ride, and the helplessness of being tied to a sled probably didn’t help. 

-_-_-

Helena cursed inwardly as the sled bumped into yet another branch, or boulder, or whatever it was that was strewn across the ground here. Myka had tied the backpack to the top of the sled to provide some modest cushioning, but the jolts still jostled Helena’s whole body – and her whole body _ached_. Feeling was returning to her legs, which Myka had wrapped in an emergency blanket, and with the warmth, pain was blossoming out from Helena’s knee in tight, dull pulses.

She bit the inside of her lip to keep from crying out, but she couldn’t stop the tears, now that no one was around to see them. Yes, she’d have to find some way of stopping before reaching the top, but right now, she gave in, just for a moment. Another impact rattled her, and a low, hoarse breath tore from her before she could clamp her jaws together again. 

‘If you want to be angry, be angry,’ Myka had said. Angry – Helena was that. Angry at herself, angry at the icy path, angry at the helplessness of finding herself at the bottom of that bloody hill, impotent like a turtle that someone had turned onto its carapace. Angry that she’d hoped for Myka to find her, angry that it had been Myka who’d found her, angry that it was Pete and two more people pulling her up, more people to whom she’d be beholden, and yet more people to see her in this sorry state when she arrived back at the hotel. 

This whole gathering was cursed, Helena had decided as she lay at the bottom of that hill, trying to resign herself to the fact that only sheer luck would save her. She didn’t believe in supernatural beings, but clearly, somehow, she’d angered something, someone, the universe, whatever. Maybe the flippant worry list she’d burned had been too glib – but no. The universe didn’t work like that.

The sled hit another snag, and jolted to the left. Helena’s head was snapped around by it, and she cursed again as pain speared through her neck. 

At least there was a pattern to the sled’s movement – one long haul, one shorter but faster one, barely any break in between. She assumed that Pete and the two women were taking turns pulling. Amanda, this blonde, pretty, all-American mother of three, _had_ sounded like a sergeant talking to Myka – perhaps she had a military background and was able to organize a rescue operation like this. Helena hadn’t spoken much to her; Claudia and Joshua had been her main conversational partners.

Helena found it infinitely easier to dwell on that, as well as on how, apparently, the Bering’s didn’t just have a shelf full of coats, boots and mittens, but also had a stash of climbing and rescue gear at the ready for a quick night-time retrieval mission, rather than to think about lying in the dark for hours, wondering if she’d be found in time.

No, better to focus on the rhythmic hauling, on getting her breathing under control again and stopping her tears, on-

“There she is,” she heard a male voice shout above. “Keep going, ladies, we’ve almost got it!”

Pete. Pete Lattimer, all-around good guy, all-American dude, or whatever the phrase was. Of course Myka had set out with him on this task. 

Breathing. Focus on your breath. In, out. Another impact, another flare of pain, channel that pain into anger, don’t think about him or why he makes you so upset.

“Come on, one more,” she heard Amanda command, and with a final jolt and three voices cheering, the sled tilted to a level position and stopped. 

Someone grabbed a flashlight and moved into her line of sight. Kelly, frowning, running her hands across Helena’s limbs firmly and without any kind of by-your-leave. When she reached Helena’s knee, Helena stiffened in expectation, but miraculously, the hands passed by her left knee, keeping well clear of the affected area. Of course – Myka had told them about the sprain on the walkie-talkie. Helena closed her eyes in silent thanks. “Nothing broken,” she heard Kelly confirm. A shudder ran through her. Without wanting to, Helena’s thoughts were being pulled back to the part where, for what had seemed like an eternity, she’d imagined all the things that could have happened to her on her way down.

“Good,” Amanda’s voice intoned. It came closer, adding, “Here, let’s get some warm water into you. Pete, can you get Myka?”

“Yup, I’ll take care of it,” Pete’s voice said. Of course. Of course he’d take care-

A hand landed on Helena’s shoulder, firmly, carefully, surprisingly gentle. “Hey,” she was addressed by Amanda. “Can you hear me? Did you pass out?” The angle of the voice changed as Amanda turned her head away to speak to someone else. “Kelly, I think she passed out.”

Helena struggled to open her eyes. Then she struggled to pull her jaws apart enough to say something. 

“She’s not,” Kelly’s voice said on her other side. Another hand, also surprisingly gentle, ran down the side of Helena’s face, eased across her eyebrow, deftly stroked down her jaw. “Her muscles are just seizing up. Hey, Ms. Wells. Helena. I’m going to cup your face, okay? Massage it a bit, get some warmth back into your muscles. I hope you’re okay with that, ‘cause I’m not asking.”

And she didn’t. Another hand joined the first. It stung a little where Helena’s face had been scratched by an encounter with a bush, but even that pain brought life back into Helena’s features. Helena tried not to flinch away from the touch, not to think about the fact that Kelly, on her hands without mittens, must be feeling the tears on Helena’s face. 

“Okay,” Kelly said a few moments later, “try again.”

This time, Helena’s eyes opened readily, as did her mouth. “Thank you,” she said croakily. 

“ _Ningún problema_ ,” Kelly said with a quick nod. “Mands, over to you.”

As she drank warm water from a thermos cup Amanda was holding to her mouth, Helena tried not to wish for Myka’s hands to have been the ones to massage warmth back into her, or to be the ones holding her head up to drink. Behind her sled, she could hear the slithering sound of rope that indicated, presumably, Pete helping Myka climb back up the slope. She tried not to crane her neck to look over to him and to where, soon, Myka would be appearing – and told herself firmly that that was because her neck was hurting even when only holding up her head, much less turning it. No, best to stay focused on Amanda, gorgeous and glowing even without make-up, and not think about how the sight of radiant blue eyes and tousled-but-shiny blonde hair paled in comparison to tired hazel and unruly curls.


	7. Chapter 7

“I want to… walk. Try to, anyway.” Helena knew she had to. Had to at least try and make it to the Bering’s under a modicum of her own power.

Helena’s statement was met with stunned silence. Then Kelly said, “You want to what now?”

Amanda, though, shrugged and said, “It’ll warm her up. If she’s up for hopping, we can give it a try.” Then, turning to Helena, she continued, “You are aware it’s gonna hurt like hell, even if you stay off your leg as much as possible?”

Pete was looking grave, but nodded along to Amanda’s words, and Myka was standing a little off to the side, with a frown on her face and her arms crossed rigidly.

Helena looked back at Amanda and nodded. “I am. Being pulled hurt… abominably as well. And I really… severely dislike the idea of continuing that.”

Amanda held her gaze for a second or two, then nodded, crouched down, and started to undo the knots that held Helena to the sled. “Let’s start with seeing if you can sit up and take it from there, shall we?”

Helena felt relief course through her body. “Yes. Thank you.” She’d counted on more resistance, frankly; had dreaded having to convince Myka of it, particularly. But Myka hadn’t said a single word yet, not since she’d come up and assured Pete (of course) that she was alright.

“Don’t thank me yet, soldier,” Amanda told Helena, but she flashed a little smile at her before concentrating on the knots again. “Ask Lattimer what kind of a taskmaster I can be.”

“Oh, she’s the worst,” Pete intoned on cue, and was socked in the biceps by Kelly. 

“That’s no way to speak of-” with a small cough, Kelly stopped herself, and continued, “a lady.”

Pete rolled his eyes, but so did Myka, curiously enough. Then Amanda inadvertently jostled Helena’s knee, and the lance of pain that shot through her leg made Helena flinch and look down at the limb. Beside her, Trailer whined.

“Sorry, Ms. Wells,” Amanda said. 

Helena shook her head. “It’s alright. And please, no… more Ms. Wells. It’s Helena.” For a moment, as Amanda gave her another of those piercing looks, Helena wondered if that was a good idea, if the familiarity of her given name would make things too… too hard to keep at bay. 

Then she remembered how alone she’d felt, at the bottom of that hill, and knew she wanted, at least for now, all the familiarity she could get. 

Amanda seemed to see the whole thought process take place behind Helena’s eyes. She didn’t say a word, though, but simply nodded and squatted back on her haunches. “Knots are done. Let’s see you sit up.” Trailer jumped up and gave a short, excited bark.

Helena gritted her teeth and raised herself, totteringly, first on her elbows, then into a seated position. Her left side hurt like the blazes, but in a way, the heat of that pain cleared her mind and warmed her up. She took a deep breath and was about to take on the next step when a hand appeared in her field of vision. 

“Here,” Kelly said, “ibuprofen. Should have thought of it beforehand, sorry.”

“How do you randomly carry ibuprofen with you?” Pete asked while Helena accepted the little pill jar. 

“I’m a vet, dude,” Kelly fired back. “Which means a me-di-cal pro-fess-ion-al. You know? There’s some stuff I have on me, always.” Turning back to Helena, she held out the thermos as well. “Here, will make it go down more easily.”

Helena gratefully took the bottle, too, and took two of the pills in short order, gingerly tilting her head back only the minutest amount.

“Shoulders, elbows and wrists alright, then,” Amanda diagnosed with a wink and stood. She glanced at the other three people and then added, “Myka, come help me pull her up. We’re about the same size, that’ll be easiest on her.”

For a moment, Helena held her breath as she waited to see what Myka’s reaction would be. Myka’s jaw jutted out quietly, but she did uncross her arms and came over to the sled without hesitation. Helena suppressed the urge to apologize – if she started now, she’d never stop; she really, truly was sorry to be this much trouble to all of them, simply by merit of her own stupidity. Instead, she meekly took the proffered hand, grasped Amanda’s too, and had the two of them hoist her upright.

“How’s that?”

The upwards movement had been painful, and Helena’s right leg was still pins-and-needles, but at least it didn’t hurt – and it carried her weight. “Manageable,” she said, trying to ignore how Myka had let go of her hand and stepped back the moment she could.

Amanda nodded in approval. “So far so good. Kelly – you’re a bit shorter than her. It’ll be best if you can support her, at least for a while. Can you make that work?”

“Sure, sarge,” Kelly shrugged.

“That’s ‘major’,” Pete corrected. “Like, seriously, she earned that rank. No joking matter, okay?”

“Okay, sarge,” Kelly said to him, emphasizing so heavily that Helena wondered if that had been the actual rank Pete had been holding. “Anyway, there’s help to be given, so you better let me by, soldier boy.”

In all the commotion, Helena had lost sight of Myka, and rediscovered her standing a few feet apart again. Then Kelly was at Helena’s side, and discussing the logistics of the next steps captured all of Helena’s attention.

-_-_-

Myka’s thoughts were a mess, and she hated that; she always had, and today was no difference. It didn’t help that it was four, going on five in the morning, and that she’d had, at best, four hours of sleep. She knew she needed time to process what was going on, time to sort out why she was so angry at and at the same time so utterly protective of Helena George Wells that she’d had a hard time seeing the sled with Helena on it disappear upwards and out of her sight, or letting Amanda undo the knots just now. She needed to understand why the sight of Helena’s face flinching in pain made her want to both lash out at the world that dealt such injuries, and at the same time to berate Helena for the stupidity of getting herself into such a situation, and- well, and to cup that face in her hands and- 

Myka took a deep breath as she stared into the dark off the path. 

There was no denying it, she wanted to kiss that face. To kiss that woman. To kiss away the pain and make it leave forever, and protect her from ever being hurt again in any way.

She swallowed dryly. 

She really needed time to process all of this. 

For now, she told herself, be kind. Be helpful in whatever way you can without getting you in further trouble. Helena didn’t do this on purpose, it was an accident, it’s not her fault. She’s hurt and she needs help. Focus on that. Process tomorrow. Or later today, or whatever. 

The way home seemed to take forever. They took turns supporting Helena as she limped along, took breaks when she couldn’t go on, took care not to step on Trailer as he ran circles around them, shepherding them all back home.

Claudia and Doctor Calder were waiting for them at the back door. “Let’s take you up to the office, Ms. Wells,” Doctor Calder said. “I swung by my office and brought a few things, starting with this wheelchair. It’s not the most comfortable model, but it’ll-”

“No,” Helena burst out. Her eyes were fixed on the contraption just visible behind Doctor Calder, and she seemed even paler than before, if that was at all possible. “I’ll… I’ll manage.”

Doctor Calder blinked, but nodded and stepped aside. Pete, currently tasked with supporting Helena, inhaled through his nose, but simply set his shoulders and soldiered on. Myka followed them, as did Claudia, who took this opportunity to talk to her. “Doctor Calder asked me to rearrange the furniture a little, bring in another lamp, make a better doctor’s office. I hope that’s okay?”

“Sure, Claud,” Myka said, rubbing a hand across her face. “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s alright now; I’ll handle the rest. Go back to sleep, okay?”

“Dude, I’m still on Switzerland time anyway; I’ll just stay up and start prepping breakfast.” Claudia patted Myka on the shoulder, then turned to head towards the kitchen.

“Count us in,” Kelly called out from behind them. “Mands, you wanna check in on the kids?”

“Nah, let Pete do that, he’s a better babysitter than a cook.”

“I heard that,” Pete called out over his shoulder. 

“Shush, guys,” Myka hissed, “just because we’re awake doesn’t mean anyone else has to.”

Pete ducked his head, duly chastised.

“Here, let me take over,” Myka offered, keeping her eyes on him so as not to look at Helena. “Go check on the kids.”

“Thanks,” he said, immediately relinquishing his hold on Helena’s wrist with a grateful look.

As Myka propped Helena up, it seemed to her that the other woman was a lot tenser now than she had been the last time Myka had supported her. “You okay?” she asked without thinking, then remembered Helena’s refusal of the wheelchair and wished she could call the words back. “Sorry, I didn’t-”

She stopped herself because Helena had stopped in her tracks, right on the threshold to Myka’s office, almost toppling the pair of them. Vanessa had preceded them inside and was walking around Myka’s desk, one hand trailing across her doctor’s bag. 

Myka heard Helena’s breathing stop for a second, then return with an intake so harsh, it might have been a sob. She quickly looked behind herself, but everyone else had left, heading towards the kitchen or the bedrooms; at least Helena had that much privacy. She was about to try and find something encouraging to say when Helena straightened her shoulders and took a step forwards. 

Myka couldn’t help but feel impressed that Helena was still able to find this amount of strength within her. Five hours, she again thought briefly. Five hours, no sleep, a sprained knee, who knows how many bruises and scratches, hypothermia, some kind of fear of wheelchairs or medical examinations or something along those lines, and she still found the strength to lift her chin and move on. 

Then Myka caught herself, and quickly moved with Helena to support her, settling her in one of her two visitor’s chairs. As she made to turn to leave, Helena’s hand clamped around hers in a steel vise. 

“Please,” Myka heard her whisper. 

“Okay,” she replied immediately, squeezing Helena’s hand reassuringly. “Okay. I got it. Don’t worry.” 

Vanessa, who no doubt had noticed the interaction, walked around them to close the door, then knelt down next to Helena’s chair. 

“Alright, Ms. Wells,” she said lightly, “how do you feel?”

Still holding Myka’s hand, Helena went through the list of what she’d told Myka an hour ago. The only difference Myka noted was that Helena did mention feeling quite that cold anymore – it checked out from Myka’s vantage point, too: the hand in hers didn’t shiver anymore, and some color was back in Helena’s cheeks. Apparently the walk had helped raise her body temperature.

Vanessa nodded. “Thank you. Would you mind if I took your vitals? Just your heartrate, blood pressure and temperature; I want to make sure everything checks out before we proceed.”

Myka could see the muscles work in Helena’s jaw before the other woman nodded, once, abruptly, and then winced. 

“Your neck too, in a moment,” Vanessa added smoothly. “I’ll be quick, alright?”

And she was. It seemed to Myka that no instrument touched Helena any longer than strictly necessary, and she wondered if Helena noticed that too. The tension that she could still feel and see in the other woman’s body seemed to indicate no lessening of Helena’s fear.

“I’d like to check your reflexes and a few other factors now, to rule out a concussion,” Vanessa said after jotting down Helena’s temperature. “Please let me know about any pain, confusion, stars you might be seeing, that kind of thing, okay?”

As Vanessa went through her diagnostics, Helena replied in terse but clear tones. She sounded detached, as if she’d buried her emotions as deeply as she could. 

“That all checks out,” Vanessa said after she’d finished. “I’m going to go behind you now, to look at your neck. Good with you?”

Instead of nodding, Helena gave an affirmative hum through her nose. Her jaws were still clenched tightly. 

“I’ll touch the right side of your neck just under your earlobe,” Vanessa announced, “and then run my fingers down your neck. I’ll apply some pressure; let me know if it is too much.”

Helena briefly closed her eyes, then hummed her assent again. Still, when Vanessa’s gloved fingers landed on her neck, she flinched, and so did Myka, in sympathy. 

Examining Helena’s knee went barely any different, if with the added difficulty of Helena having to stand to drop her pants. Myka tried to steady her as best she could, but the maneuver ended with Helena flopping clumsily back into her chair, which obviously aggravated her neck – and her ribs, which Myka resolved to mention to Vanessa if Helena shouldn’t – again. Still, as unerringly as a bird finding its nest, Helena’s hand found her way to Myka’s again.

Myka didn’t need to say anything to Vanessa, though; after Helena’s knee had been declared a grade 1 sprain without any torn ligaments, pending further imaging examination, Vanessa looked up from her notes and subjected Helena to a firm, if empathetic glance.

“I’ve noticed that you seem to have some pain in your torso, Ms. Wells,” she said. “I know that this can be a sensitive area to bare, but I would like to check for lasting injuries nevertheless. Those can spring nasty surprises if overlooked.”

Helena took a deep, shuddering breath. 

“I… I can turn around if you like,” Myka offered. She’d been quiet throughout the proceedings, because she didn’t want Helena to have to acknowledge that she was intruding any more than necessary, but here, she felt she had to offer at least that little bit of added privacy.

“No, I-” Helena began, but her voice cracked. 

“I’ll go get you some water,” Vanessa announced and stood up. “You haven’t had anything to drink since we started this.” She flashed Helena a warm smile as she rounded the desk.

“Kelly has a thermos somewhere with warm water,” Myka told her retreating back, and Vanessa acknowledged it with a thumbs-up gesture as she left. 

When she heard the door shut, Helena exhaled deeply. For the first time, she looked down at her hand in Myka’s. “I’m sorry,” she said, but made no move to pull it away or even let go. 

“You don’t have to be,” Myka said. 

“You seemed… angry, earlier,” Helena replied, ducking her head just a little. “It was stupid of me to go out by myself in the dark, on a path I didn’t know. I’m sorry that my stupidity led to… all of this. For you and your friends.”

Myka squeezed Helena’s hand. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Yeah, I was a little put out, out there. It was cold and late and I’d been worried, and, you know… it kinda piled up. But now I’m just glad that we found you, and that we got you home, and that you’re not too badly hurt.”

Again, Helena m-hmed instead of nodding. “I feel I owe you an explanation-” she began hesitantly, but Myka waved that away.

“You don’t, really, and even if you _want_ to explain, I’m sure it can wait. Don’t worry about that, either, okay?”

A knock on the door announced Vanessa’s return. Drinking some water was a moment of reprieve, then Myka saw Helena steel herself for the inevitable next step. As the doctor examined Helena’s ribs for potential cracks or fractures and her abdominal cave for any signs of internal injuries, Myka did her best to grant Helena as much privacy as she could, but there were a few sights she saw nevertheless that burned themselves into her mind, like how vividly the bruises that were already forming on Helena’s left side stood out against the whiteness of her skin.

“Looks promising,” Vanessa summed up her findings. She stood up and sat on the corner of Myka’s desk. “No fractures, and by the look and feel of it, no internal injuries either. Do let me know the instant you feel any kind of internal pressure, though, or pain, or if you have difficulties breathing, okay? I can take you to my practice later; I do have an X-ray machine if we want to-”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Helena interrupted her in a constricted voice. “I’ll keep an eye out for any signs, Doctor Calder, but…” Her voice dropped away. 

“You must be tired,” Vanessa said commiseratingly. “And no wonder, after all of this. Here’s what I want you to do now.” She took two small pill bottles and a small tube of ointment out of her bag and put them on the desk. “This is for your ribs,” she said, pointing to the tube, “and this is a pain killer,” she pointed at the larger pill bottle. 

“I’ve already had four hundred milligrams of Ibuprofen,” Helena said conscientiously. 

“Good,” Vanessa replied. “If you find your pain too intense for sleep, feel free to take two hundred more; that’s half a one of those. Just take the tube and the bottle up with you; I have more in my practice. Apply the ointment to your ribs before you sleep, it will help with the bruising. This,” she pointed to the other bottle, “is a mild sedative. It will relax your muscles and it will help you sleep. If you want to use it, take two right now; that’ll last you about four to six hours. That way you won’t sleep until nightfall. Your choice, of course; but I’d recommend it.”

“Alright,” Helena whispered. She reached out for the thermos. “Both, please.”

Vanessa nodded and shook the requested pills out into her hand, then reached them over. “When you wake up again, we’ll follow the R.I.C.E method for your knee. Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate,” she elaborated. “I want you to move or put weight on the knee as little as possible, and put a couple pillows under it while you’re sitting or lying down. I’ll have a bandage waiting for you to wrap around it, too. Cool it with a cold pack or a bag of ice cubes; Jean will surely give you some.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Myka cut in.

Vanessa smiled briefly at her, then tilted her head. “Would you like my help in taking Ms. Wells up to her room?”

“No,” Myka shook her head, “we’ve managed before, and it’s not far to the elevator.” She crammed the pill bottle and ointment in her pockets.

“Well then,” Vanessa said and removed her gloves, “exam’s over. Ms. Wells, someone should check in on you at around noon; would you like me to do that, or Myka here, or someone else?”

Helena cleared her throat and looked up at Myka. Her eyes were black as ink in a face white as paper. “If you would be so kind?”

“Of course,” Myka replied, trying not to dwell on how it seemed to relax Helena instantly. “Come on, let’s get you up.”

-_-_-

“So, um, here we are.” Myka sounded equal parts tired and awkward, and Helena couldn’t blame her. It had been a long day, a long night, and now they stood together in front of Helena’s bed.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to handle the rest on my own,” Helena said. She felt absolutely leaden with fatigue; ready to simply kick off her shoes and lie down fully clothed. 

“I…” Myka hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.” Her hand stayed around Helena’s waist for a moment longer, then slid away.

Buoyed slightly by Myka’s simple trust in her, Helena let go of the taller woman’s shoulder and turned so that her back was facing the bed. “I’ll simply lie down, take off my shoes, and go to sleep,” she informed Myka – for some reason, her tired brain was insisting that she needed to.

Myka wrinkled her brow, then snapped her fingers. “The ointment,” she said. “Don’t forget the ointment.” She dug it and the pill bottle out of her pocket and put them on Helena’s nightstand. 

Helena groaned. “Alright, alright. I won’t.” 

Myka nodded again. “Good. I’ll, um… I’ll just, um, go then.” 

Helena made an affirmative noise and, as Myka turned and walked towards the door, sat down on the bed and bent to tug her boots off.

Pain stabbed through her knee, silver and bright as lightning. She couldn’t help it – she yelled out. 

Myka was back at her side in an instant. “Oh my god,” she exclaimed softly, “are you okay? Helena, you- are you-? What happened? What’s wrong?”

Helena’s whole body seemed to throb, and she was fighting hard not to vomit, or pass out, or both. “Knee,” she pressed out through clenched teeth, then followed that up with a heartfelt groan. 

“Jostled it? Moved it wrong?” Myka looked concerned. “Is this new? Should I get Vanessa?”

Helena tried to suck in a breath, but the pain had her bent double. “No,” she brought out finally. She didn’t care if this was new; she couldn’t care about Myka’s worry; she did not want to see Doctor Calder again so soon. Her stomach clenched painfully, and she clamped down on the urge to heave. Through all that, she suddenly felt hands on her shoulders, steadying her.

“Hey,” Myka was calling gently, “hey. It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t worry. You’re alright. You’re okay.”

Helena sucked in another breath. It sounded like a sob – it was a sob. She brought a hand to her cheek and it came away wet. Confused, she stared at it. 

“Happens sometimes,” Myka said, still in that gentle, calm voice. “Crying can be like a… like a pressure valve on a steam cooker. Sometimes stuff just bubbles up and you gotta let it out. Don’t worry about it.” Her hands were still on Helena’s shoulders, and those shoulders were shaking now, and Helena couldn’t stop it.

A wave of shame and distaste welled up in her, and she tried to turn away. Myka’s hold on her shoulders loosened slightly. 

“I’ll leave if you like,” Helena heard her say. “If you don’t want me to see you like this, I can go. And if it would help you if I stayed, I can do that too.”

Helena felt barely able to parse this. The worst of the pain had subsided, but she couldn’t seem to stop crying, and Myka somehow wanted her to make a decision, but she didn’t know how. 

“Okay,” she heard Myka’s voice again, and felt a quick squeeze on her shoulders and a weight shift on the mattress. “I’ll leave you alone, then.” 

“No!” It sounded wild. It sounded alien to Helena’s ears, and yet it had come from her throat. 

Immediately, Myka’s weight was full on the mattress again, her warmth back at Helena’s side. “Shh, it’s okay,” she murmured, and tugged gently on Helena’s shoulders. “It’s okay. I’ll stay. I won’t go away. I’ll be right here.”

Helena felt herself sinking forwards, her body towards Myka’s warmth, her mind towards Myka’s soothing words. She gave up on parsing, on holding on, on keeping it together. 

-_-_-

About half an hour later, Myka closed the door to Helena’s room behind her. She stepped into the elevator, ran her hands across her face, then rested them at the nape of her neck. She did not push a button, but simply stared straight ahead of herself. 

What the hell had just happened?

Okay, so yes, Helena had bumped her knee in some way, stuff like that happened. It had hurt, that was understandable, and it had brought tears to Helena’s eyes – also understandable. 

But that… that _moment?_ Afterwards?

Myka usually wasn’t good at comforting crying people; it made her feel awkward and out of place. Usually, when she saw someone crying, she wanted to get away from them as fast as possible – just like she wanted everyone else to get away from her as fast as possible if she couldn’t help but cry. 

But to see Helena, who’d worked so hard to get home under her own power, who’d held her chin high for so long despite all the pain she must have felt; to see Helena lose her composure hadn’t made Myka want to leave; it had made her want to stay, to hug, to hold – and to protect, to make sure Helena had never again cause to feel this way. She wanted to hiss and spit and _growl_ at anything that would ever make Helena forget about herself and sob into a stranger’s shoulder.

They _were_ strangers, after all. Myka stood by what she’d told Pete earlier – she barely knew the woman. Yes, so she felt protective of her, but who wouldn’t, after an ordeal like this? That was just being human. And yes, okay, she might have felt the urge to press a kiss on that black, black hair, the better to console and comfort. So that went a little beyond mere compassion and protectiveness. 

She barely noticed the doors of the elevator close, but she did feel the jolt of it beginning to move downwards. 

She had barely time to collect her thoughts when the lift stopped again and the doors opened to admit-

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

“Morning, mom.” Thank goodness some things didn’t need higher brain functions; wishing her mom a good morning happened on autopilot. 

Still, Jean Bering realized something was off. She tilted her head. “Something wrong?” 

The concern in her voice made Myka shake herself out of the last remnants of her fugue. As the elevator took them to the first floor, and as they walked towards the little kitchen, she quickly told her mom what had happened. Then she froze, right inside the doorway. 

“Shit,” she hissed. “The ointment. Vanessa said-” she interrupted herself. Helena had been fast asleep by the time Myka left, and before that, she’d been in no condition to apply ointment. And you didn’t apply ointment on a stranger who’d just cried herself to sleep in your arms. Right?

Jean seemed to read all of that in Myka’s expression. “I’m sure it’ll be alright,” she said. “Bruises heal by themselves, don’t they? It’ll be alright, sweetheart, don’t worry. She’s asleep now, then?” 

Myka nodded. “Fast asleep when I left,” she said. She hadn’t gone into detail about that, and fortunately, Jean didn’t pry. 

“Good,” Jean said emphatically. “How about you, then, sweetheart – coffee, or bed?”

Myka contemplated the question for a moment, then shook her head. “Coffee,” she said. Better to be among people than alone with her thoughts.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with a content warning [technically, the following it a spoiler, but if you're a Bering and Wells fan, you can probably guess what the spoilery content is now...]: it contains the description of a child dying from a medical condition.

An endless corridor stretched in front of Helena, and the more she ran, the longer it seemed. There was a door at the end; a door she had to reach. There was a voice calling for her; a voice she had to find. Nothing had ever been as important as reaching that door, that voice; nothing in her entire life. 

But she was so tired. Her legs were leaden, and didn’t want to follow her command to run faster, faster. And then the floor lurched, and she was thrown sideways, and her knee _twisted_. The pain made her cry out; she fell – through the floor of the corridor she fell, away from the door she fell. Reaching out with the last of her strength, she shouted-

“Christina!!”

Helena woke from the sound of her own voice. Her heart was beating in her throat, her legs were tangled in sheets, the room was unfamiliar and much, much too bright, and out of that brightness a voice called for her.

“Helena, it’s alright. It was a dream. It was just a dream. You’re awake now.”

Helena tried to shake the last vestiges of terror from her mind. “M-Myka?” She squinted into the brightness.

It diminished – Myka was closing the curtains. “I’m sorry,” she said, “that must’ve been harsh on your eyes. Better now?”

“Yes,” Helena said. She tried to lift herself onto her elbows and winced. Her neck hurt abominably. Sitting up would be a task and a half. “Thank you,” she managed. There was a catch to her voice and a scratch in her throat, so as Helena raised herself up, she looked around to see if the thermos was, by any chance, still there.

“Here, let me,” Myka said, catching the direction and intention of Helena’s gaze. She unscrewed the thermos top, filled it with a last little sip of water, and held it out to Helena. “Let me refill that for you real quick,” she said as Helena took it.

“Thank you,” Helena repeated, then emptied the cup eagerly. It left her thirsty for more – but realizing that she was thirsty had her also realize that she needed to use the bathroom. When Myka returned, she seemed to read as much on Helena’s face. 

“Okay, quick rundown as to why I’m in your room,” Myka said quickly, “and then I’ll leave you alone – it’s half past noon, lunch is ready, and if you want anything, I can bring it up for you. It’s vegetable stew and green leaf salad with home-baked bread,” she elaborated. “Vanessa said she’s gonna check in on you in an hour or so, to put a bandage on your knee. I got an ice pack for you, by the way.” She lifted the item, then laid it on the bed. “Also, Vanessa got you crutches if you’re more comfortable using those; I left them in the hallway. If… um…” Myka hesitated, clearly looking for words around the wheelchair incident, then went on, “if they’re… um, bad, too, you can lean on my shoulder again, but… I mean you probably don’t want me in the bathroom with you.” She gave Helena a nervous grin. 

Helena took refuge in drinking some more water. Then she cleared her throat. “Crutches should be alright,” she said. Myka wasn’t to know why wheelchairs, even adult-sized ones, bothered her this much. Crutches weren’t associated with… those weeks, and should, therefore, indeed be alright. 

Myka nodded and turned towards the door. “I’ll grab them.” She was back quickly, and held them out to Helena. “Need any help?”

Helena stared at the metal tubing and plastic handles. They looked intimidating, but at least not threatening. “I’ve never used crutches,” she admitted, “so any pointers would be welcome.”

It took a moment, even with Myka’s help, but then Helena was upright and propped up by the crutches. 

“Okay, put your weight on your good leg,” Myka said, “make sure you’re stable, and move one crutch forward. Like, maybe a bit less than a foot or so, just to begin with.”

“You’ve done this before?” Helena asked, trying to cover how clumsy she felt. 

“A couple times, yes,” Myka said. “I used to ice skate when I was a kid, and sprained my ankle twice in the space of three months when I was ten. It’s been a while, but it’s a bit like biking. Yeah, you got it. Okay, your armpits are not gonna be happy about the next bit, so best prepare for that. Your ribs either, I guess. Here, wait a moment, let me-” She moved to stand right in front of Helena, about two feet away. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. You try that first step, but if it’s too harsh on your back or core or shoulder or whatever, just let yourself fall forward. I’ll catch you, okay?”

Helena looked up – and felt like she was having a vision. Myka stood right in the path of the sunshine that was falling through the crack she’d left in the curtains, and it made her curls gleam and her eyes shine. It also highlighted a tiny crease of concern between her eyebrows, and Helena realized that that concern was directed at her, for… well, moongazing. Being awe-struck. She quickly dropped her glance and cleared her throat again. “Alright,” she announced. “I hope you’re prepared to get out of my way in case this works.” It was a lame attempt at a joke, but Myka’s smile didn’t reflect that. 

“I’m not the one on crutches, remember?” Myka said lightly. “Don’t worry. Go for it.”

Helena took a deep breath, winced as her left side protested, then, indeed, went for it.

-_-_-

As Myka made her way downstairs again to fetch some food for Helena, she couldn’t help but smile. Helena was stubborn, but then again, so was Myka. Myka had insisted on watching as Helena made one tour of her bedroom, sat down on a chair and got up again unaided – she’d wanted to be reasonably sure Helena would be okay by herself before she left. Surely that was a sensible exception to the order to rest. Helena had grumbled, but mostly at herself, and had soldiered through the crutch challenge with remarkable fortitude.

They hadn’t exchanged one more word on Helena’s obvious nightmare, but in Myka’s mind, the wheels were turning. As much as she’d tried not to see anything Helena might not have wanted her to see when Vanessa examined her, Myka had noticed the stretch marks on Helena’s abdomen. Those, combined with Helena disappearing right after saving Dean from choking, made for uncomfortable hypotheses. 

“Hey _hey_ hey,” a voice disrupted her musings. “How’s the damsel?” Pete joined her in the kitchen hallway, hair still wet from showering.

Myka gave a sound between a groan and a laugh. “Don’t ever let her hear you say that,” she told him. “She felt bad enough out there, and I think that particular word would be just about the worst you could use to remind her of that.”

“Yeah, well,” Pete exhaled, “I did sacrifice a few hours of sleep for her. Teasing her is payback, you know?”

“I know that’s how you operate,” Myka gave back, “but-” but then she stopped herself. “You know what? Never mind. I’m sure she can take care of herself in a battle of wits against you.” The kitchen doors opened as they approached, and through it, she could see her mother cutting baguette into thick slices. 

“Oh, ha ha,” Pete said, then turned unerringly to where food was within reach, and grabbed one of the slices from Jean’s cutting board. 

“Hey,” Jean admonished him, jokingly brandishing the breadknife. 

“Gotta make sure it’s not poisoned,” Pete replied. 

“ _Hey!_ ” Jean repeated, sterner this time. Myka bit back a smile. You cast doubt on Jean Bering’s culinary skills at your own risk.

Pete ducked his head. “Whoops.” He looked fully unrepentant, though, and bit into his prize with enthusiasm. “Oh, man, that’s really good,” he said, with his mouth full.

Jean rolled her eyes. “Get out of here, Pete,” she told him with the merest hint of a smile. Then, turning to Myka, she asked, “Ms. Wells having the whole lot?”

“Nope,” Myka replied, “just soup and bread, please.”

“What’s this, what’s this?” Pete asked, turning away from the door again. “Room service for the damsel?”

Myka valiantly resisted the urge to throw a piece of bread at his head. 

As if she could see the impulse plain on Myka’s face, Jean formed a protective barrier around the bread with her arms. “Behave, you two. Pete, out. Send Todd in here; I need him to carry the pot of soup to the table.”

“Yes ma’am!” Pete saluted with the half-eaten piece of bread, then hurried out of the kitchen. 

Jean turned to Myka again. “And you, grab a tray and get back over here.”

“Yes ma’am,” Myka echoed Pete and did as she was told. 

“It’s kind of you to take care of Ms. Wells, dear,” Jean said as Myka returned with her tray. 

“Don’t you start,” Myka sighed. 

“What do you mean?” 

Myka started. “Oh! Sorry, I thought you were… nevermind. Abigail and Pete have this theory that I’m into her, and they’ve been teasing me. I thought you were, too. Sorry.”

“Into her, hm?” Jean said with a twinkle in her eye. 

“Mom!” Myka wailed. “I’m not. I am just being kind; why is that so hard to believe?”

“Well, maybe because I’ve seen the looks you’ve been giving her,” Jean replied. “Surreptitiously, of course, but-” she struck a pose with her hands clasped dramatically in front of her, “a mother knows, dear.” Then she grinned at Myka. “Besides, I know those looks from the receiving end now.”

“Mom!” Myka exclaimed again. “I mean I’m happy for you and Jane, but… oh my god, this is so much too much information.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

Myka sighed. “No, I’m sorry, mom. I want you to be happy, and to enjoy that honeymoon phase and all of that. It’s just… It’s a new context, I guess, and I need to wrap my mind around that.”

Jean tilted her head. “Me with a woman?”

Myka thought for a moment. “You with someone who’s not Dad, I guess?” she said then. “I mean that’s all I ever knew growing up. And yeah, you with a woman is also new, but… I mean love is love. It’s not like I’ve never fallen in love with a girl before.”

Jean smiled. “Like Cobie Smuller, am I right?”

Myka groaned. “Worst. Party. Ever.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jean said, catching Myka’s arm and squeezing. “She really, really wasn’t meant for you.”

“Did you… when you… I mean when I…” Myka broke off, wondering how to ask this. 

“Was I as accepting of you as I was because I’m bisexual, too?” Jean asked innocently.

Myka spluttered for a moment, then caught herself. “Uh, yeah? I guess?”

“I suppose so,” Jean replied. “I realized it a lot later in life than you did; by then I was already married to your father. And it took me a while to come to terms with it. But, yes, I… I had my suspicions about you at times.”

“Did you ever… tell Dad? About you?”

Jean shook her head, suddenly very serious. “For much the same reason you never came out to him until after you’d left for college,” she said. “I was dependent on him – no, don’t protest, sweetheart, not like that. But if he’d divorced me, and/or fired me, I would have been in a bit of a pickle out here, right? And besides, I did love him. It wasn’t as if I was staying with him only out of obligation.” She took another step closer to Myka and hugged her. “And I’m so, so sorry he reacted so badly when you told him. I tried to soften things a bit, but-”

“It’s okay, mom,” Myka replied. She put her arms around her mother’s shoulders and squeezed. “He did come around eventually, after all.”

Jean huffed a small sigh. “I am not so sure about that,” she said, letting go of Myka. “When you got together with Sam, it was as if he’d forgotten you ever said anything. I mean he never spoke much about emotions in any case; wouldn’t utter a word about the whole matter unless I brought it up.”

Myka rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it,” she said resignedly. 

“I know.” Jean sighed again. “I know, dear. And I’m sorry.”

“Mom, I wish you wouldn’t apologize for him,” Myka said. “His mistakes aren’t your fault, okay?” 

“I failed to speak up for you, though,” Jean said simply. “And that’s what I’m sorry for.”

Myka took a deep breath. There had been times when she’d wished that her mom would take her side. Times when she’d felt alone, no: lonely. When a kind word from her mother, not afterwards in Myka’s room, but right there and then at the dinner table, would have meant the world. She took one look at Jean’s face and knew that Jean knew. That Jean felt the guilt of hundreds of missed chances, thousands of unsaid words; that it weighed her down with the inevitability of knowing that the past couldn’t be changed, however much she might wish to. Tears suddenly welled up in Myka’s eyes. “I know, mom,” she whispered fiercely. “I know.” She wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders again. “It’s alright.”

Jean hugged her daughter back with equal strength. They held each other for a moment, then Jean withdrew again. “Thank you, Myka,” she said. Her eyes were full, and she blinked furiously to avert the tears from spilling. 

“Um…” Todd’s voice came from the doorway. “Soup pot?”

Jean laughed, wiped her eyes quickly, and turned around to direct him. 

-_-_-

When the knock came on Helena’s door, she heaved a big sigh before calling out for Myka to come in. 

“Hey,” Myka called out in her customary way. 

Helena almost smiled at that thought – that she was able to distinguish one of Myka’s customs. She steeled herself. “I would like to tell you something,” she began. 

“I thought you might,” Myka said. She shook the tray’s legs out, sat it down on the bed in front of Helena, and stood back with her arms folded. “I’ll repeat what I told you yesterday,” she continued. “You don’t need to. Whatever it is, I can see that it’s difficult for you, and I don’t want to make you go through anything upsetting just because you feel I might need to know. I don’t, okay? I’m perfectly okay not knowing. I mean if you really, truly want to, for your own sake, then I’ll listen to anything and for as long as you need me to, but please don’t force yourself into it, okay?”

Helena blinked. “You are… very perceptive,” she said finally. 

Myka shrugged. “I notice things. You are good with numbers and patterns. Everyone has their talents, I guess.” She smiled to take the bite out of her words, pulled over a chair and sat down. “Maybe eat first? See if you still feel like telling me afterwards? I mean if yes, at least you’re-” she flexed her arm, “fortified, I guess.”

Despite herself, Helena had to chuckle. She picked up the spoon, and Myka lifted the cloche that covered the plate. A delicious smell wafted up, and Helena inhaled deeply. 

Myka grinned. “I’ll let my mom know.”

Helena couldn’t resist. “I haven’t had any yet,” she said with a sweet smile. 

Myka laughed out loud at the callback. “Nice one.”

“Thank you.” Helena dipped her spoon into the soup, and, a moment later, closed her eyes blissfully. “Definitely let her know,” she said after she had swallowed. “This is marvelous.”

Myka nodded. “She’s good at what she does.”

“So are you,” Helena said. “I checked out the competition when I took MacPherson’s contract. The Bering’s is a very well-run place.” She shook her head. “It’s not that the MacPherson’s can’t compete, it’s that he’s going at it the wrong way,” she added. “There _is_ a market for lower-priced accommodation here, and if he were prepared to scale some things down in order to pay fair wages, it would work.” She took another spoonful of soup and sighed happily. “But enough of work,” she said firmly. “This soup deserves better conversation.”

Myka hummed musingly. “Like… oh! I know. Like, how Trailer the dog found Hugo’s slippers and buried them.”

Helena raised a skeptical eyebrow, but continued eating, motioning with her free hand for Myka to go on.

Myka laughed and entered into the story. 

“-and now Hugo is threatening to walk to Artie’s house, barefoot, and find some of Artie’s shoes and bury them in his backyard,” she concluded as Helena was wiping down the bowl with one last bit of bread. 

“Incredible,” Helena commented dryly. 

“You’re not a dog person, are you,” Myka gave back, just as dryly. “Cats, then?”

Helena shuddered. “Heavens no.” Then she shook her head. “I’m away from home far too often and far too long to consider owning a pet.” She took another fortifying breath and added, “Christina always wanted a dog, thought.”

Myka, too, inhaled deeply. “Your… daughter?” Her voice was tentative to the extreme, as were her eyes. When Helena nodded, they turned stricken. “You want to… I suppose you want to tell me about her?” Helena nodded again. Myka swallowed. 

“Unless,” Helena said, suddenly worried at the look on Myka’s face, “unless that’s a sensitive topic for you?” She had no idea of Myka’s past, after all. 

“No,” Myka said quickly, sitting up and leaning forward. “No, god, no, don’t worry. I just… after Dean, yesterday… I’m worried it’s a bad topic for you.”

Helena huffed a small laugh through her nose. “I appreciate your concern,” she said, and meant it. “The heart of the matter is,” she went on, “that I have never really talked about it. It has always been… my burden to carry, as it were. When you spoke of… of replacement families, I…” she broke off. The wave of yearning was back, and had she been standing, it would have knocked her over with its force. She tried to collect herself. “My family and I fell out over Christina,” she said roughly. She took another breath – steady. Steady. Start at the beginning. “I’d better start at the beginning,” she said out loud.

Myka nodded mutely. 

“I was born into a well-off family,” Helena began, “in Kent, as happenstance would have it. My father sometimes boasted he was related to my namesake, but never elaborated how; I think he made it up, frankly, to win someone over if he felt like it. Anyway, I… I grew up quite wealthy. After finishing secondary school, there was no question that I would go to university. My parents only rebelled when I told them the subject I wanted to study – teaching.” 

Myka’s eyebrows rose at that, but she held her silence. 

Helena continued. “Specifically, I wanted to be a science teacher,” she elaborated. “I’d been fascinated by science even as a child, and had found the educational system severely lacking; I wanted to change that. My parents thought that that was utter nonsense; with my grades, my intellect, I should be studying law, medicine, something respectable. Not _teaching_.” Helena readily called up her father’s inflection of those words. They’d been echoing in her mind for over a decade, after all. “They grudgingly allowed it, after a lot of fighting, and off to Manchester I went.”

“Manchester!” Myka interjected in surprise. “Why Manchester?”

Helena shrugged. “I didn’t want to go to university in London,” she said, “too close to my parents. I wanted to be on my own two feet. Besides, London is incredibly expensive; Manchester much less so.”

Myka nodded. “Gotcha. Go on?”

“It seems I wasn’t done disappointing my parents,” Helena went on with a lopsided smile. “Two semesters into my studies, I became pregnant.”

Myka’s lips formed a silent O.

Helena nodded. “That was the final straw for my parents,” she went on. “They cut me loose. Until then, I’d received monthly support from them; now, nothing.” This time, her smile was bitter. “I was lucky, in that I had a professor who cared enough to set me up with a couple of grants and other services; she single-handedly saved me in my darkest moment up until then. Through her work and encouragement, I was able to make it through my degree with only one semester’s worth of delay – but then I faced another hurdle: finding a job. Christina was had just turned two years old at that time, and was a definite damper for any kind of job offer. No, we can’t offer child care; no, we can’t pay more than this to cover your additional costs; the usual.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She hadn’t thought of those months for years. Her fingers sought out her locket; she tugged it out of her shirt and clasped it firmly. “Those grants I’d received,” she went on, “were for students, not for job seekers; and the support available for job seekers was much lower. Besides, I didn’t qualify for student discounts anymore, nor for student accommodation. So there I was, an unemployed mother of a toddler, living on benefits in the cheapest housing I could find. Not very glamorous, but I didn’t mind.” 

For a moment, Helena allowed herself to indulge in those memories of the early months. “Christina was pure joy,” she went on quietly. “She was beautiful, perfect. Of course there were nights where she’d keep me up, but oh, I loved her.” Helena gritted her teeth. “When she started to sneeze and have runny eyes, about three months after we moved into that apartment, I didn’t think anything of it. She’d never had a cold before, but she was just two years old. I took her to our pediatrician, who diagnosed her with the beginnings of seasonal allergies. It was spring, after all. It made sense to me. The doctor gave us some medicine, and back home I went.” For a moment, Helena’s jaws worked silently. “It wasn’t allergies,” she said finally, bitterly. “And if I’d gone to a pediatrician closer to where we lived, they would have recognized my address and come to that conclusion faster; the housing block was known to be riddled with it, but I didn’t know that, and neither did our pediatrician.”

She closed her eyes, trying to stay calm, composed, focused. Suddenly, she felt a warm weight on her free hand – Myka’s hand, grasping her fingers with a sure grip. Helena closed her fingers around Myka’s, took a deep breath, and went on. 

“It was mold,” she said hoarsely. “Black mold. And by the time we realized that, Christina was coughing up blood.” She bit down on the inside of her cheek, took another breath, and soldiered on. “She was placed in intensive care immediately, but the toxins had spread far into her system. And she wasn’t strong enough anymore. You could see her lose weight, lose energy. My…” again, she bit down on her cheek, but the tears wouldn’t be stopped this time. “My Christina died two weeks later.”

She fell silent, trying to stem the flow of tears. She wasn’t done with her story yet; she wanted to tell Myka the rest, too. As if Myka sensed that, she remained silent, letting Helena pull herself together. 

When Helena felt ready, she cleared her throat, dabbed her eyes with the hem of her sleeve, and went on, “A few days afterwards, someone rang my doorbell – I was back in the apartment,” she elaborated. “I think partly I was hoping that the mold would get me too. Anyway, this person rang, and said he was from a citizens’ association, and would represent me in court if I wanted to sue the company that owned the apartment blocks. I felt almost too numb to make that kind of decision, but he came back a couple of days later, and by then I had made up my mind.”

Myka’s fingers closed around Helena’s and squeezed briefly, fiercely, but again, she didn’t say a word. Helena went on, “We won in court, but that was small solace. The company was sentenced to pay out damages for the pain and suffering of the survivors and the families of the deceased – I was,” she huffed another bitter laugh, “ _awarded_ ninety thousand pounds. However, it was no use. The company declared bankruptcy not a month after the sentence. The lawyer came by again and explained to me that I’d be getting fifteen thousand, at best, and there was nothing much he could do.” She scowled sharply. “That’s when I knew where the true power was, and what I wanted to do next. I took the money and went back to university – not to study law, as I’d originally thought, but business.”

Helena smiled as she remembered one circumstance of that decision. “Wooly was overjoyed,” she said fondly. Myka shifted a little in her seat, and Helena opened her eyes to look at her. Confusion was plain on the other woman’s face. “My apologies,” Helena said. “William Wolcott is my dearest – well, my only friend. We’d grown up together, and when I decided to study in Manchester, he’d followed. He’d studied business, and had always been at me to do the same. And I knew I had talent for it, but I wanted to teach science, you see?”

Myka nodded. Still, she did not say a word, and Helena smiled at her in gratitude. 

“So when that day came and I reached out to him, he was overjoyed.” Helena’s smile turned soft. “He’d always wanted to help me; he’d even offered to marry me, back when I got pregnant, even though he is the gayest man you’ve ever met. I’d always declined, though, but now – now he had the kind of leverage I needed.” The last remnants of her smile slid away as she went on, “He helped me get a part-time job as a data typist at the consulting agency he worked for. I saw a lot of numbers in those months; worked evenings there and studied during the day. Finished my degree without any delays, and got a promotion to junior analyst right afterwards. I professed an interest in complex business structures, and was assigned the most convoluted of cases by my supervisor; he was probably setting me up to fail.” Helena smiled again, thinly and with satisfaction, as she remembered Crowley’s apoplectic face when she’d handed him the files. “I did not. I’d written an analysis more precise than he ever had; when he in turn presented my results as his to his superiors, he was called out immediately, and I was promoted yet again.” She gestured vaguely. “Thus, my rise to fame.” Her voice sounded bitter even to her own ears, and she sighed. “I tried to put it to good use,” she went on, “but I had to be careful. If you hire consultants to help you and the very next day, the police or the unions get an anonymous call with very detailed information about shenanigans in your company, you’re going to catch wise very soon. However, if the same thing happens only very rarely, never very specifically, and with a larger amount of time in between the consultants’ visit and the tattling…” Again, she sighed. “I’d hoped it would help me feel better, but it didn’t. The lawyer had been right; there wasn’t much anyone could do, and I am not this age’s Robin Hood.” With a final squeeze, she let go of the locket and of Myka’s hand. “What I am,” she said, “is tired.” She leaned back in her chair, wincing as the movement aggravated her ribcage. 

Myka nodded slowly. “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “I… I’m sorry. About your little girl.”

“Sometimes every day in this world is a reminder of what I’ve lost,” Helena whispered. “I swore myself I’d never be that poor again. I swore I would help others to never be that poor again, but that’s not what companies hire consultants for. So I swallowed my instincts and my judgement and delivered what they want to hear. And every time I do, I imagine my daughter asking me if that was truly the best I could do.” She shook her head at herself. “Yes, I’m good at what I do, and yes, I try to make my clients see how they stand to benefit from paying their employees fairly. Every time. You wouldn’t believe how often that falls on deaf ears.”

“Oh, I would,” Myka said darkly.

Surprised, Helena’s eyes flew up to meet Myka’s. “You-”

“I’d totally believe you,” Myka elaborated. “I mean we’re kind of sheltered here; most people in this town are still pretty… I don’t know, honorable? In how they deal with each other. But even here, that’s not always the case. MacPherson being just the most glaring example. And business in Boulder, at the small bookstore I worked at, was grim.”

Helena nodded understandingly. “That is a highly competitive market.”

Myka snorted a laugh. “Watch your language, Wells,” she said bitterly.

Helena raised her eyebrows. “I do apologize.”

Myka gestured wearily. “No, I’m sorry,” she replied. “That came out quite… viciously. It’s just…”

“The language of the enemy?”

At this, Myka shrugged. “In a way, yeah. Which, I don’t see you as an enemy, I want to make that perfectly clear.”

Helena smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

“Are you… are you okay?” Myka asked. 

Helena’s first instinct was a glib, smooth answer, but the look on Myka’s face stopped her in her tracks. She snapped her mouth shut and exhaled. “Mostly,” she said after a moment’s thought. She raised her eyebrows at herself. “Which is interesting, considering. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be able to… to talk about this so openly with someone and not be… not break down.”

“Maybe that’s a good sign?” Myka suggested. “I’m no therapist, but… I mean they do say that time’s a healer.”

Helena laughed, once. It sounded hollow to her ears, and Myka – Myka recoiled as if Helena had slapped her. 

“I’m sorry,” Myka said quickly, urgently. “God, Helena, I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Helena replied. For some reason, now her voice was thick and her throat constricted. “Don’t… don’t worry.”

“Helena, you’re crying.” The words were infinitely gentle.

Helena blinked and raised her hand to her face. It was true – her left cheek stung, even, as the tears aggravated her scratches. She contemplated her fingers for a moment, the wetness clinging to them. “Indeed I am,” she said. “A valve, you called it, I believe.”

Myka nodded. “I…” she hesitated. “Would you like me to leave you? Or stay?”

“I… would like to be alone,” Helena said, and added, “please.”

Again, Myka nodded. As soon as she got up, Helena regretted her words, but for the life of her, she couldn’t move her mouth or vocal chords to call out to Myka as she left.


	9. Chapter 9

“Mom? Jane? Can I talk with you guys for a moment?” Myka asked the two women quietly. There weren’t many more people in the sitting room with them, but after one look at Myka’s face, Jean got up from the sofa and pulled up Jane with her. 

“Sure, sweetheart. Staff kitchen?” 

Myka nodded. Jean led them to the small room, then leaned against the counter and looked at Myka, worry plain on her face. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Myka sighed. Her shoulders sagged, and it made her realize how tense she’d been. “I… I need to ask you both something. Hypothetically speaking. Not connected to anyone who’s here. Okay?”

Jane settled against the counter next to Jean and put her arm around Jean’s waist. “That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” she said with a raised eyebrow. 

Myka swallowed. “I need you to not try and draw any conclusions, okay? I just want to ask you something.”

“Ask ahead, then,” Jean said encouragingly.

“How do you… I mean when you… When you lose someone you love. When they… when they die. How do you come back from that?”

Jane let out a long breath, while Jean looked stricken. “Myka, what…”

“No conclusions, mom, okay? Please. Please just… talk to me about it?”

Jane nodded, then her gaze went out of focus. “In a way, you don’t,” she said after a moment. “It changes you. The you afterwards is not the you before it happened. And I think that’s the most difficult thing, when all is said and done. Accepting that, figuring out who you are now, in this new context. Who you are without your husband, when you were with him for decades. I mean yes, of course, even within a marriage you are your own person, but still. You can’t be married to someone for twenty-three years and not grow to fit with them, in some ways at least.”

Jean wrapped her arm around Jane’s shoulder and squeezed. Then she looked at Myka. “I agree with Jane,” she said. “When you love someone and share your life with them, you don’t always see eye to eye, of course. So you compromise. You negotiate. And that means you change. Even if it’s just habits that you build or stop or change to accommodate your partner, you change. And as you spend your life with them, you get used to them, you rely on them, you know what to expect from them and what to look out for, and when that’s suddenly gone…” She took a deep breath. 

Jane nodded. “I kept making too much coffee in the morning,” she said. “For weeks, _months_ after the fire. I’d see it sit in the pot and I’d cry. I’d pour it into the sink and cry. And if I remembered to make less coffee and the pot was empty after I’d had my two cups, I’d cry as well.”

“Oh, Jane,” Jean sighed and leaned her head against Jane’s temple. “I’m so sorry.”

Jane’s gaze came back into focus and settled on Jean. “It’s alright,” she said quietly. “It stopped being such a tearjerker after a while. And while even that made me sad from time to time, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You learn to live with that absence, that spot in your heart where they used to be. You’ll always feel it, but you learn to live with it. You have to; it’s part of you. It won’t ever go away.”

Jean gritted her teeth. “I’ve always hated that,” she said darkly. 

Myka’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“What Jane just said,” Jean replied. “That it’ll never go away. I wanted it to go away. I wanted the pain to stop, somehow. Wanted to wake up in the morning without that burden, just once, just one day. I would have given my right arm for that. People would tell me,” she said, giving Jane a brief, fleeting smile, “that I’d learn to live with it, and I wanted to shout at them, scream and curse that they were wrong, that there was no way I’d have to lug that around with me until the end of my days.” She looked down – Jane had taken her hand and was stroking her knuckles slightly. “Turns out I was wrong,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Accepting that was hard. But I think it helped.”

Myka nodded. “I… I think I understand.” A thought came to her. “I think in a way, children have it a bit easier when a parent dies,” she said slowly. “Grown up children, I mean,” she hastened to add, as Jane caught her gaze with raised eyebrows. “Don’t get me wrong, it hurt me too when dad died, but… I’d already pulled away from him when it happened. I’d been in Boulder for five years. I wasn’t as close to him anymore as Pete was to Dan. So that part you just described; I didn’t go through that that much.”

Jane nodded. “I think you’re right. And the other way around, when a parent loses a child, especially a young child…” She shook her head. “I’m glad it happened only once in my career as teacher,” she said. “It was awful for Mr. and Ms. Arnulfsen, I could see that. You just don’t expect that to ever happen. You expect to be there for your kid, care for them, raise them, teach them, take care of their needs, see them grow into themselves. You don’t expect to outlive them. When they’re still that young, they’re pretty close to the center of your life; everything you do takes them into account somehow, every decision you make you have to keep them in mind. That’s a pretty intense focus that suddenly loses its focal point.” She gave Myka a piercing look but didn’t add anything more, and Myka was glad about that. She didn’t know if Jane had her own hypothesis about why Myka was asking, but as long as Jane didn’t say anything to the point, Myka didn’t have to, either.

She nodded. “Thanks,” she said.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Jane said. “Everyone grieves in their own way.” Next to her, Jean nodded emphatically. “Everyone finds their own way through the pain, at their own pace. There’s no right or wrong way to handle bereavement, no golden rule for how to feel good again in five weeks. And that goes for other kinds of grief too – like when a long term relationship ends; that’s grief. Sometimes moving somewhere else can bring grief. Ending something that wasn’t good for you, like leaving an abusive partner, can still leave you grieving. Everyone has to find their own way of handling that.”

“I understand.” Myka nodded again. “Thanks for telling me. And for not asking questions. I’ll… I’m gonna…” She gestured behind her. “I’ll think about what you’ve told me.”

Jean took a hesitant step forward. “Sweetheart, if you need me-”

“I know, mom.” Myka smiled. “Thank you.” When her mother opened her arms, Myka was happy to step forward and receive that hug. “Thank you,” she repeated.

“Anytime, love.”

-_-_-

There was a knock on the door, and Helena sighed again. This time, she knew, it wasn’t Myka outside the door. For a moment, she contemplated simply not answering, but sooner or later, she’d have to face Doctor Calder. She wiped her face, hoping that it wasn’t too obvious she’d just cried, and called, “Come in.”

“Good afternoon,” Doctor Calder said as she entered the room. She wore a simple sweater over her slacks – no white lab coat in sight. 

Helena tried to relax her jaw muscles, to unclench her fingers. “Good afternoon,” she replied. 

“How are you doing?” Calder pulled out a chair and sat down, though nowhere as close as Myka had earlier. 

“I took ibuprofen before lunch,” Helena said, “and it is beginning to kick in. I suppose it could be worse. Before you start your examination, though, I’d like to apologize. It was quite rude of me, how I behaved earlier.”

Doctor Calder shook her head. “I don’t see it that way,” she said. “And you aren’t the first patient I’ve treated who isn’t too fond of doctors. Besides,” she added with a smile, “we got through everything, didn’t we? I appreciate how much you worked with me.”

Helena stared at her for a moment, rendered speechless by the doctor’s kindness. “Thank you,” she said finally. “I… thank you.”

Doctor Calder smiled again. “You’re welcome,” she said simply. “Now… shall we begin?”

Helena felt much calmer this time around. This was not just a doctor; this was also the woman who’d pulled off the most ridiculous faces during charades, who had laughed tears at Mr. Miller’s antics. 

Breathing seemed to feel easier, even before Doctor Calder applied her ointment. 

That realization hit Helena with the force of a ton of bricks. It couldn’t be that simple, though, could it? She’d always scoffed when people had said that burdens got easier when you shared them. It was too pat, wasn’t it? As if a memory like that, memories plural, were a large wooden beam that two people could haul more easily than one person alone. It didn’t work like that, did it? But she did feel… lighter, somehow. 

That night, out in the snow, a thought had arisen and been promptly buried again: if she died here, no one would remember Christina. Not really remember her. Not her parents, who’d never seen their grandchild; not Wooly, who even though he’d figured in Helena and Christina’s lives, hadn’t figured large. 

Doctor Calder was looking at her as if she expected an answer.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” Helena said, blushing. “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Would you like to come down to the sitting room? It might be more entertaining than being here by yourself. And as long as you promise to not budge from the sofa, I’ll allow it.” The doctor winked. 

Despite herself, Helena smiled. It faltered slightly as she thought about the idea – typically, when she was hurt, she was an even more solitary creature than usual. But the idea to be closer to the warmth and familiarity of the people downstairs, even if she wasn’t part of it, called out to her. She bit her lip for a moment – then she nodded. 

“Good.” Doctor Calder’s smile was warm, like a harbinger of what the sitting room would hold. “I’ll help you, shall I?”

-_-_-

There was a big hullaballoo all of a sudden, and Myka looked up from her book. When she saw what was happening, her jaw dropped briefly, then she burst into a smile so wide her cheeks were aching. 

Helena, on crutches, was walking into the room. Behind her, Vanessa carried what looked like Helena’s e-book reader and a few other personal items. Around her, Sam and Dean as well as several adults swarmed like excited chickens, peppering Helena with questions about her health, her adventure, how she felt now-

Vanessa put a stop to it after a short moment, shooing a path clear for Helena to walk further into the room. Helena stopped to get her bearings – then her eyes met Myka’s. A second later, she was making her way towards the couch that Myka was sitting on. 

Myka quickly scooted to the side to make space. 

Helena was smiling when she arrived. “It seems I needn’t ask,” she said, glancing down at the spot Myka had cleared for her, “but may I join you?”

“Please,” Myka said, smiling back. 

Vanessa set Helena’s things down on the coffee table within easy reach, then grabbed two small pillows from a nearby easy chair and placed them on the table too. “Brace yourself,” she told Helena, then lifted Helena’s foot onto the pillows. Then she nodded at Myka. “She’s not to move a muscle while she’s down here. Can I conscript you for fetching duty?”

“Sure,” Myka replied. 

“Excellent. I’ll just get another cold pack from the freezer, then she’s all yours.”

Helena had followed the exchange with raised eyebrows and a spark of amusement in the depth of her eyes. “A conscript, then?” she asked Myka.

“At your service,” Myka said with a jaunty salute. “I mean technically, I suppose, that role should fall to the white knight, but,” she craned her neck to look around the room, “he does not seem to be within reach.”

Helena’s face fell slightly, and Myka wondered why. Would Helena prefer that Pete-? That didn’t seem to make sense? Then Helena shook herself slightly, and her expression became neutral again. Curious, even. “May I ask what you’re reading?” she asked, looking down at the book in Myka’s lap. 

“Hm? Oh!” Myka lifted it up to show Helena the cover. “Pratchett’s Hogfather,” she added, just in case. “It’s my tradition this time of year.”

Helena took some time to study the cover drawing. “Fitting,” she concluded.

Myka nodded happily, but before she could launch into a description of the book, Vanessa returned with the cold pack. As the doctor secured it around Helena’s knee, Myka asked, “Hey, Vanessa – have you seen Pete by any chance?” It wasn’t very smooth, but if Helena wanted Pete to help her, Myka would see that he did.

“He wasn’t in the kitchen just now,” Vanessa said. “I think he’s out sledding with the kids, Amanda, and Kelly.” She hesitated for a moment, then tilted her head closer to Myka and asked, “Myka, I’m not sure, but… you’re his best friend; I don’t know how else to address this, or who else to. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but… I saw him kiss Amanda yesterday night, _and_ I saw him kiss Kelly.” She cleared her throat delicately. “I don’t mean to pry,” she added, “but it worried me. For a moment, I was wondering if… if he’d relapsed.”

Myka gaped at that, then snapped her mouth shut and smiled. “Definitely not that,” she said. 

“Oh!” Vanessa leaned back and smiled in relief. “Good. That’s alright then. I mean, it’s really none of my business anyway, but… sometimes I can’t help myself.” She patted Myka’s knee and stood up. “I’ll let him know you want to see him if I run into him?”

“Please. And thank you, for your concern.”

Vanessa nodded and left.

Myka turned back to Helena. “So what are you reading?” she asked, because Helena had picked up her reader. 

“You might not believe it,” Helena said, “but I am indeed reading that most British of genres: a murder mystery.”

Myka was about to drop the topic and let Helena read in peace, but it seemed Helena wanted to talk instead. They discussed Christie, Sayers, their American counterparts, and the differences and similarities of American and British crime novels; Jeannie brought over cookies and milk courtesy of Artie, but other than that, Myka and Helena were in a small, happy literary bubble of their own. 

Then talk veered to Myka’s former occupation as a seller of books, and from there to wider topics; music genres, artists, movies, traveling, even politics – and suddenly Myka realized that it was dark outside, dinner was almost ready, and she hadn’t moved a finger all day to help or prepare or set the table. 

She was just about to apologize and head to the kitchen when Abigail approached. 

“Sorry!” Myka said quickly, but Abigail’s hand landed on her shoulder and pushed her back into the seat.

“Don’t sweat it,” Abigail said. “Everything’s under control, boss. No, I’m here to deliver a new cold pack.” She brandished the item in question.

“Ah,” Helena said, “that also means I should take my medication.”

Abigail nodded and crouched down over Helena’s knee. “Doctor’s order, yup. Take her a cold pack and remind her to take her meds, that’s what she said.” She regarded the bandaged knee skeptically. “D’you know how to change that? ‘Cause I don’t. I’m a chef, not a doctor.”

“Here, let me,” Myka said and leaned forward. “I got it.”

“Wonderful,” Abigail said with fake enthusiasm. “Go Myka. I’ll fetch you some water for your meds, yeah?” And without waiting for an answer, she was gone again. 

Helena was quiet as Myka tended to her knee, to the point that when Myka was done, she looked up and asked, “Are you alright?”

“Everyone is so kind,” Helena said, in the smallest voice Myka had ever heard from her. “I feel so bad; everyone is going to so much trouble and I have no way of ever repaying that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Myka said, confident that she knew these people well enough to speak for them. “You help when you can, that’s just how we do things in this… well, family.” She smiled at Helena. “Your replacement family for the time being, remember?” 

Myka was looking at Helena at just the right angle to see sudden tears shoot into the other woman’s eyes. She also saw her press her lips together and swallow a couple of times, until at last, the danger was over. 

Helena gave her a small, shaky smile. “Thank you.”

“Hey guys,” Abigail announced herself from a few feet away. “Sorry to interrupt your moment there, but here’s your water and I’m needed back in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” Helena said quickly, “and my apologies – I didn’t see you.”

“M-hmmm,” Abigail sing-songed with a pointed look at Myka and a mouthed “told you so.” 

When she left, Helena looked after her with a quizzical expression, then turned to Myka. “What on Earth was that about?” she asked. 

Myka blushed furiously. “Nothing important,” she replied, hoping that Helena would buy it, or at least have the grace to let it lie. 

The other woman’s raised eyebrows didn’t seem promising, though, nor the amount of time that Helena was silently looking at Myka. Then the eyebrows sank back into their usual place, and Helena looked away to take her pills. 

Myka breathed a sigh of relief. 

-_-_-

During dinner, Helena kept casting glances at Myka, who was seated between her sister and her mother this time. Claudia had managed, again, to sit on Helena’s right-hand side, and had pulled her brother into the seat on Helena’s left. She tried engaging Helena in conversation, but Helena found it supremely hard to concentrate.

Pete wasn’t Myka’s lover. It hadn’t been stated outright, so there was a very small chance that they were and their relationship was just extremely… peculiar. Helena wasn’t quite banking on it yet, but… in all but the most liberal of open relationships, a partner would react quite differently to being told that their partner had just kissed not just one, but two other women, wouldn’t they? And Vanessa had called Myka Pete’s ‘best friend’. That also didn’t sound like two people in a romantic relationship. 

“Earth to The Time Traveler’s Wife,” Claudia said, prompting Helena to look at her. 

“I beg your pardon,” Helena said quickly. 

Claudia grinned. “No biggie,” she replied. “I ship it.”

Helena tilted her head. “You… you what?”

Claudia’s grin grew while on Helena’s other side, Joshua Donovan groaned slightly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, never mind,” Claudia said innocently. “In any case, she’s single. And she hates the mistletoe, but I think you should go for it.”

Helena blinked. “Mistletoe?”

“After dinner,” Claudia nodded with enthusiasm. Then her eyes narrowed slightly, although she was still smiling. “I wonder if Jean and Jane will kiss.” Then she sighed, cast a not-very-misunderstandable look at Todd, and sighed again. 

“Sister mine,” Joshua said, head buried in his hands, “you are as subtle as a steam roller.”

“And you wouldn’t want me any other way,” Claudia gave back, and bit into her dinner roll.

The mistletoe was indeed hung up on an exposed ceiling beam near the fire pit after dinner, and for the next ten minutes or so, people hung around to see if anyone would kiss. Then they started to become bored and seek more interesting entertainment, and so bit by bit, people broke into smaller groups again. Izzy was playing board games with the children and some of the adults, Artie had offered to share his snickerdoodle recipe and half a dozen people had followed him to the kitchen, and the rest was seated in the various sofas and chairs, talking softly, or – in Helena’s case – reading. Myka had disappeared shortly after dinner, so Joshua Donovan had helped Helena back to her couch. He’d fetched her another glass of water, but then Steve Jinks had called out to him about one thing or another, and Helena had assured Donovan that she was absolutely fine.

“May I join you?” 

The familiar voice woke a smile on Helena’s face even before she looked up. “Of course,” she said.

Myka smiled back and sat down. “Any indication yet whodunit?” 

Helena laughed. “There hasn’t even been a body yet,” she replied. 

“Ah.” Myka nodded sagely, leaned back into the pillows, and took up her own book. 

“Before you start-” Helena began, then stopped herself, wondering if what she wanted to say was a good idea at all. 

Myka let the book sink down into her lap and looked at Helena, head tilted, mouth pulled into a crooked smile. It was the single most charming thing Helena had ever seen. “Yeah?”

Helena bit her lip for a moment, then decided to go for it. “The other day,” she said, slowly and hesitantly, “when we were writing our lists to put into the fire…” 

When she didn’t go on, Myka nodded encouragingly. 

Helena took a deep breath. “I had difficulties finding something to write down,” she said. 

“Oh!” Myka nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I think that was because while I have this big… matter, in my past, that I’d like to affect me less, I don’t want it to burn to ashes,” Helena said. 

The look in Myka’s eyes darkened with empathy immediately, and she scooted a little closer. “Oh,” she said softly. 

“However,” Helena went on – she didn’t want the conversation to linger here; _she_ didn’t want to linger here. “I do have something I hope for now, for the future. And since I don’t really have any idea of how to bring it about, I might as well ask the assistance of any divine being or ancestor willing to listen and help.”

Myka’s face brightened as she understood. “You want to write another list?”

Helena nodded. “Do you think it is still okay to do that?”

“Of course it is!” Myka nodded eagerly and stood up. “I’ll fetch the stuff you need.”

She turned and almost ran into Pete. “Doctor Vanessa said you wanted me?” he said, placing a steadying hand on Myka’s elbow. 

Their body language was not that of lovers, Helena was sure of it. Friends, yes. Close friends, definitely. Who weren’t afraid to invade each other’s physical space, most assuredly. But lovers? No. 

“Yeah,” Myka was saying, turning back to Helena. “I think Helena wanted something from you?”

“Milady!” Pete immediately dropped to his knee, spreading out his arms in a theatrical gesture. “What can I get thee?”

Helena gaped at him, then looked at Myka for support. 

Myka shrugged. “Told you,” she said simply. 

“Yes, you did, but-” Helena pointed at the man. “Really?”

Myka nodded. “Really. Sorry.”

Helena turned back to Pete. “I think there has been a misunderstanding,” she said finally. “I have not, nor shall I, fates willing, ever want anything from you.” It wasn’t until the words were out that she realized how they might be interpreted. Before she was able to say anything further, though, Pete grabbed his heart and sagged dramatically.

“You wound me, my damsel, you truly do.”

“Oh, shut up, Shatner,” Amanda said from behind him. “I for one, am happy to keep things between the three of us.” She cast a quick look in Helena’s direction. “No offense, Wells.”

Helena inclined her head with as much grace as she could muster in her surprise. “None taken.” 

“Kelly, help me drag this oaf to the good doctor, see if his ego needs ointment.”

Amanda was, Helena realized, not the only one who’d noticed Pete’s antics. With Kelly and Amanda tugging Pete away – literally – by the scruff of his neck, though, people’s attentions focused on them, not Helena and Myka. 

“Here,” Myka said, holding out pencil and paper to Helena as though nothing big had happened. 

Helena smiled at her, happy to ignore the interlude as well. “Thank you.” Writing the scroll took barely more than a few seconds. “Help me up?” Helena asked Myka.

“Sure.”

It didn’t seem to take much longer to get to the fire pit. Helena stood for a moment, holding the little bit of rolled-up paper in her palm. She still wasn’t one hundred percent sure if this was a good idea – but she was one hundred percent sure it was what she wanted. With a big breath, she tossed the scroll into the fire. It caught quickly and was consumed in the blink of an eye, the last piece of it fluttering upwards with a few embers.

Myka turned to Helena a smile so gentle and happy that it took Helena’s breath away. “I’d take that as a good sign,” she said. “And I hope it’ll help.”

Helena smiled back at her. “For now, though,” she said, heart hammering in her throat, “you could help me?”

“Of course! What do you need?”

“Can you hold my crutch for a moment?” 

Myka looked startled, but accepted the implement unquestioningly. 

“Thank you,” Helena breathed. Then she leaned forwards, braced herself against Myka’s shoulder, and kissed her lightly on the lips. 

When she pulled back, Myka looked thunderstruck. There was a clatter as Helena’s crutch fell from Myka’s grasp. For a moment, Helena wondered if she had misjudged, if this was a mistake of titanic proportions, then Myka moved, smoothly, surely, unerringly, catching Helena’s face in both hands, catching Helena’s lips in a kiss that consumed any lingering doubts of Helena’s faster than the fire had consumed her scroll.

Next to them, Claudia whooped and danced on the spot, pointing to the mistletoe. Then she took a deep breath, murmured ‘no time like the present’ to herself, turned around and pointed at Todd. “How about it, Gadget Boy?”

A few feet away, Jean and Jane looked on with a happy chuckle, then kissed each other.


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry for the delay in posting this; I wanted the story to go up in time for the holidays and barely made that work... anyway, happy holidays and: may the light find you.)

“Mom! Pete! Kelly!” 

“You wouldn’t believe what Ms. Wells did today! Oh, hi, Myka!”

Myka looked at Amanda with raised eyebrows as the twins stormed into the house, then winced as Cadie cannoned into her.

“Myka! Ms. Wells really is the awesomest! Thanks for keeping her!” the shorter-haired twin said, hugging Myka and slapping her on the back the same way Pete usually did – if about a foot lower – then Cadie detached himself and turned to Amanda. “Dinner?”

“Full sentence, soldier,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes.

“When’s dinner, please?”

At this, Amanda grinned. “Fifteen minutes, kid. We just need to finish loading the bouquets into Myka’s car and load the pizza into the oven.”

“Pizza!!!” Cadie hollered. “Sam! Sam!!! It’s pizza tonight!”

“Indoor voice, soldier, or no pizza after all,” Amanda shouted after the receding figure of her eldest child. Then she turned back to Myka. “What did Ms. Wells do in school today, d’you know?”

“Spoilers,” Myka grinned. 

Amanda smacked her shoulder. “Come on,” she wheedled. 

“No, just think how nice it’ll be to hear it all, from your own kids, over dinner?” Myka asked. “Without having to fake surprise?”

Amanda sighed heavily. “You got a point.”

“I know.” Myka’s grin returned. 

Again, Amanda rolled her eyes. “Insufferable,” she muttered to herself. Then, back to Myka and more loudly, she said, “Shouldn’t you be out of the honeymoon phase already? Is that phase longer when it’s two women?”

“You tell me,” Myka shot back, grabbing one last box of bouquets. “Kelly moved in how long ago?”

“Not as long ago as Helena moving into the Bering’s,” Amanda replied immediately. 

“By two days,” Myka said, rolling her eyes because Amanda was behind her and couldn’t see. 

“Cadie’s only older by two hours,” Amanda said, shoving her box of flowers down the truck bed. “Ask him if that matters or not.”

“She would have been here sooner if Mrs. Frederic hadn’t had to strong-arm Mr. Kosan into giving her the position as science teacher,” Myka protested. 

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda,” Amanda sang. She stepped back from the car and stretched. “Wasn’t.”

“It’s not like it’s a contest anyway,” Myka said. 

Amanda laughed out loud. “That’s what losers of contests have been saying since the world began, flaquita – but I’ll give you a pass. Today. For this one. Happiness isn’t a contest. And I’m glad you’re happy.”

Myka hopped down from the truck bed, grinning broadly again. “I am that,” she said, “and likewise.” She snapped the truck’s door shut and hugged Amanda. “Tell everyone hi from me and enjoy that pizza.”

As she drove away from Martin’s Co-op, Myka mused on how the first half of the year had gone. She’d lost a head of service and housekeeping – Douglas Fargo had bought the MacPherson and was running it now as a hostel-slash-motel for the globe-trotting ‘hipster crowd’, as Todd disparagingly called it. In a last-minute effort that had everyone groaning, Douglas had tried to persuade Helena to join the endeavor – “Picture it – the Wells-Fargo! Oh shoot, is that domain name taken?” – as his partner or even financier, but she’d politely declined. Myka had been impressed by said politeness – she would have laughed in Fargo’s face. Even as a bystander, she almost had. But she had to give him props; his ideas seemed sound. And she had to give Helena props: she’d actually agreed to look over his business plans for a fee that he was obviously willing to pay. 

It had been the last bit of consulting Helena had done in a while. From what Helena had said, potentially the last bit of consulting ever, but Myka couldn’t quite trust that proclamation yet. It’d only been six months. 

“Hey, you,” she was greeted as she got out of her truck. 

“Hey, y- what the hell is in your hair?!”

Helena turned a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of what Myka was referring to. “But-”

“I’m joking,” Myka said, catching her around the waist and kissing her. “Your hair looks incredible. As in, good, not as in, covered with baking soda-slash-vinegar lava.”

The sensation of Helena bending to align herself with Myka’s embrace, of Helena’s arms around Myka’s waist and Helena’s lips on Myka’s cheeks – Myka didn’t think that would get old anytime soon. 

“What was that with the ‘hey, you’, anyway?” she asked after another kiss. 

“Too American?”

“I happen to like ‘hello, darling’,” Myka said, her pout only half in jest. 

“Well, darling,” Helena replied, leaning back in Myka’s arms and putting extra emphasis on the endearment, “I shall carry on with it, then.”

“You’re impossible,” Myka laughed. 

“Simply English, luv.”

“Luv?!”

“Unacceptable?”

“I’d rather be ‘hey, you’ for the rest of forever,” Myka said firmly. 

“Alright then,” Helena said. She dropped her gaze for a moment, and her teasing smile turned both softer and more radiant at the same time. “The rest of forever,” she breathed.

Myka blushed. “I kinda had hoped you hadn’t heard that,” she admitted. 

“Whyever not?”

“Because it’s too much too soon?”

Helena shook her head firmly. “Exactly right,” she said. “I didn’t pick this dump in the sticks for just the next five years, you know.”

“You-” Myka sputtered, but then decided to let the slight against the Bering’s go. Not. Important. “The rest of forever, then?” she asked, hope fluttering in her insides. 

Helena wound her arms around Myka’s neck, digging her fingers into the curls there as she loved to do. “The rest of forever. I found my light here, or it found me, and even if it’s the other solstice tomorrow and that particular light will wane again, you-” she kissed Myka tenderly, “will always be here, and I want to be with you.”

Myka was speechless. As Helena chuckled and kissed her again, there was only one thing Myka could think to say. 

“I love you.”

“And I love you, darling.”


End file.
